Ep #100: Let’s Get Personal

Oh my goodness, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 100.

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 a little excited. Can you tell? I’m also feeling a little feisty today. Which is perfect because I am recording the Q&A episode because we’ve hit episode 100. If you’re new here maybe you don’t know this, but I’ve been asking people to submit their questions and I will answer anything that you ask me on episode 100. And it turns out it’s probably going to be a couple of episodes because you sent in so many questions.

So, just a little aside before I get started. First I just want to say I am so grateful to you. I am so grateful to everybody who listens to this podcast. When I started this podcast I just knew, it had been in the back of my mind for a while.

And I knew that when I started it I was willing to record for an entire year without having many listeners, without knowing what I was doing, without feeling like I knew what I was doing. And that I would just keep going because it was going to be, I knew ahead of time it was going to be my favorite thing, and it is. And I also knew I really wanted to give back to coaches, to the coaching community because of everything it has given me.

And not only is not no one listening, that’s definitely not how you say it. But it turns out a lot of you are listening and I could not be more grateful. I think that we, at this point, are over like 400,00 downloads maybe, something like that. And that truly just blows my whole mind.

It doesn’t even make sense to me. Like that number is just like, what? Close to half a million? I mean, might as well just say 20 million at this point, like that’s how unbelievable it feels to me. So I just want to say I’m so grateful. Thank you so much for listening and I can’t wait to do another 50 episodes. Let’s just keep going, shall we?

All right, so let’s dive in. So here’s what I did, just so you know ahead of time. What I did is I’m going to read these questions and then just answer them in real time. I don’t have like prepared responses or prepared statements for each thing.

I did briefly read through them so that I could group them together and start with some that are a little more personal and a little more about me and then end with the ones that are a little more very coaching specific or strategy specific. And I did group some together.

So some people asked very similar questions, I have kind of grouped those together so if you think you hear your question and it’s not worded exactly like you asked it, it’s because someone else asked the same thing and I’m just going to read one of them. Okay? Let’s get started.

The first question is, so this is a little personal but I heard you on another podcast talking about struggling with anxiety. Can you elaborate on how coaching helped with that and what you had tried before? I definitely can.

I would say that I have had anxiety my whole life. And when I say had anxiety, I mean in some ways I have “struggled” with anxiety since I was pretty young. And I think I’ve always been very good at hiding it as far as people that were close to me, unless I told them, they probably wouldn’t have known.

And I think for a very long time it was a coping mechanism and I didn’t really understand it. And then when I was in college was the first time I started seeing a therapist because it was getting stronger, and stronger, and stronger, to the point it was really starting to affect my life.

And so I started seeing a therapist, so that is something I’ve tried before. And therapy was amazing for me. It was the first time that I really started to understand myself and started to understand why I reacted certain ways to certain things and, you know, just like really understand who I was and why I was feeling the way I was feeling. And why I was showing up in the world the way I was showing up in the world.

And I have worked with several different therapists and several different types of therapists. Which I think is part of the reason that I believe that there are so many different types of coaching that are very useful and you just have to find the kind of coaching that you like or try all different kinds.

Because I worked with therapists who would use CBT. I worked with therapists who would, I remember my very first therapist who was amazing, he taught me how to meditate and he would do guided meditations. And I don’t know that he would have called it this, but looking back I would say it was almost a little bit like hypnosis. And I would just leave his office feeling so calm and just very, I mean it really blew my mind. It was this whole experience that I didn’t know I needed until I had it. And so that kind of continued.

And then in my 20s when I had kids, my 20s and early 30s, when I had my two kids kind of changed a lot in my life and I had to make some hard decisions, decided to quit. When I found out I was pregnant with my first daughter I was supposed to be starting a PhD program for psychology. And I really thought that I’d probably be a professor or clinical psychologist, but just like work in that realm of research and education, you know, for my career.

And then I found out I was pregnant. And then I found out my pregnancy was high risk and so it kind of turned it all on its head. And I had to make some decisions that were really hard, that felt so hard for me in the moment. And now, of course, they’re the best decisions that I ever could have made because it’s how I ended up here as a coach.

But between then and here, after I had my first daughter I really felt that anxiety like really start to kind of ramp back up. I think part of it was just hormones and my body’s response to having babies. And then part of it was just that feeling of being lost and having no idea, right? Like I thought, oh, here’s the plan, I knew exactly what it was. And then all of a sudden the plan was just thrown out the window and I felt very lost and confused.

So then I had my second daughter a couple of years later, about two and a half years later, and then that just grew. Now in that time, I did start a business, which I’ll get to in a minute because there are some questions about that. I started a business and I was doing things, but I was doing all of these things and still feeling so lost.

And that’s when I heard someone talk about coaching and I hired my first coach. And so during that time between having my first daughter and hiring a coach it felt like my anxiety was just getting worse and worse and worse. And I did go back to therapy and I, at that time, had great results from the therapy. But I never found a therapist that I super clicked with like I did my very first therapist.

And I kind of tried different things and different therapists. And to be clear, when I say anxiety I was having like weekly panic attacks. This isn’t something that I talk about a lot, although I am an open book about it. If anybody has questions, please always ask. But I was having weekly panic attacks, if not more, some times were worse than others.

And looking back, I now know that if I had been very honest with my doctors and with my therapist, I probably would have been more heavily medicated and probably diagnosed with maybe panic disorder or something similar. And I understand that all logically with a background in psychology and all the work I’ve done around psychology.

But when I was there in the moment it just was like, I have to just keep going, I have to just keep going. At one point, it was just like, okay, this is just too much something has to change. And literally, when I was in that timeframe, one of my friends told me she had just hired a life coach. And I was like, what in the world is that? I need one today.

And I hired a life coach who I worked with for about a year and a half before I started my coaching business. And I never looked back. And here we are. So I think therapy is amazing. I think coaching is amazing. I think there’s a space for both and everything in between. I think there’s a space for every type of coaching, every type of therapy.

I think that, of course, each person probably has their preferences, but I think this is why I’m so open to helping people find their thing, right? Finding the thing that really resonates with them and then helping their clients with it. Because I’ve just had so much experience on the client side as far as coaching and therapy and just many healing modalities.

So I hope that was useful for you. I do think that when it comes to coaching, I think coaching is the thing that helped me understand, not why I was feeling so anxious, but to kind of understand what to do with it and how to just sit with the feeling. I now know, because I no longer have panic attacks, I don’t take any anxiety medication, although I used to.

I now know that what I was experiencing was I was experiencing the anxiety, but then I was experiencing so much resistance to it and so many spinning thoughts, right? Which is what coaching really helped me do in a way that therapy can also help but for whatever reason it was just different for me.

It was just like oh my gosh, it’s like I finally found the thing that helped me just accept myself for who I am, be able to sit with the anxiety and just like okay, this is anxiety, this is what it feels like. And to separate that from then all of the thoughts and all of the things that I was piling on top of it, which of course is what was creating the panic.

So if that was you that asked, I hope that that was helpful. If you have any other questions, please reach out. I’m very passionate talking about just mental health in general. I think that there are so many options when it comes to healing and taking care of yourself. And of course, it just so happens I think coaching is an amazing one, but so are all the others.

The most important thing is that if someone is asking this because you are feeling extremely anxious or it’s something that is happening to you often, the most important thing you can do is just talk to people about it and find someone to help you.

Okay, next question, you mentioned before that you had another business before you were a coach, what was it? I’m just curious. So you’re probably going to laugh. You may have heard me talk about this before, but I haven’t really talked about it on the podcast. And a promise I will make to you is that I will post a photo on my Instagram around the time this comes out. So if you don’t follow me on Instagram, go find me and follow me if you want to see this.

But I used to make dinosaur capes. I sold them on Etsy and then eventually also had my own website. And I sold a lot of them and I made a lot of money. And unfortunately, I didn’t have a business coach. So I should have, I know that now. But I didn’t know how to really capitalize on what I had. So I was always hustling, always. I was making a lot of money, but I was spending a lot of money and I didn’t know how to kind of grow that business from there.

Looking back I think I could do it totally differently. I’ve even considered it before of like, wouldn’t it be fun to make dinosaur capes again? Now, when I really think about doing it, no, it wouldn’t. But it was a lot of fun when I did it. And unfortunately, I think I was kind of doing it for the wrong reasons at the time.

I did love it, I’ve known how to sew since I was young. My grandmother taught me, her name is Nani. That’s not her name but that’s what I call her, Nani. She’s still with us and she lives near me. And so when I actually started the business I think it was because I was so desperate to find something that was for me because like I said, I felt like my life was just kind of turned upside down and I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

And being a mom home with kids was like not my favorite thing. Even as much as I love my kids, I love them so much. But my brain just really needed something, mostly to escape all of that anxiety I was feeling.

So I started a business. But then it got to the point where I was up until 4am sewing capes. Capes, C-A-P-E-S. Capes, you’re hearing this right. And I would get orders for like 100 capes at a time or 50 capes at a time, especially around Halloween and Christmas. And yeah, that’s what I did, I sold capes.

Which is so funny looking back now because my husband, at the time, would say that that business was his retirement plan. Little did he know what was coming, right? Oh, I laugh just thinking about that. But I will post a photo or photos of the capes on my Instagram so that you can see them. And no, you cannot have one, so don’t ask.

Every time I show someone a photo, if they have kids they’re like, “Oh my gosh, you have to make me one.” No, I’m not. Sorry. But I’m sure if you go on Etsy, you can probably find people doing similar things. Hopefully someone like stole my design and they’re just making millions doing it because it was a great idea and no one else was doing it at the time.

All right, next question. I have heard you talk about your kids, I know you have two kids, have you used coaching with them? And has it worked? So I’m not trying to think of what the answer is, I’m trying to think of how to say what their relationship or my relationship of coaching and my kids is.

And I think what I would say is no, I haven’t said, “Okay, I’m going to coach you on this.” Or I haven’t necessarily sat them down and shown them like, okay, here’s an equation where your thoughts and your feelings mix together and create your results, right? I haven’t done that. And I also haven’t just coached them without asking, because it’s very important, right, consent in coaching.

But I have done a couple things. I have mostly used it on myself when it comes to my kids. So I coach myself, my thoughts, or I’ve even worked, you know, I’ve been coached by other people on thoughts about my kids and about their grades, and school, and like how can I make sure that they never feel pain? And like all of those things that parents think about, right? Which, of course, is ridiculous because I can’t.

But mostly the coaching, like that’s the main part, I would say, where the coaching has come in handy. The other thing is my older daughter who is 12, almost 13 while I’m recording this, has really started, you know, she’s at that age where it can be a tough age sometimes for kids and trying to, you know, they’re really turning into adults, turning into teenagers, and just watching her kind of navigate the world and have her own experience and her own emotions.

And this year for her in school has definitely been one of the hardest. She’s on a travel sports team, so she has sports four, five, or six, sometimes days a week. And then she is in seventh grade. And the school district that she’s in, they don’t believe in giving a lot of homework, which I love, until seventh grade.

And so it has just been this big shift of all of a sudden she’s in a lot of sports and she has a lot of homework. And she gets easily overwhelmed. And of course, it’s interesting for me because I can see, her reaction is very similar to how I used to react to a lot of things in my life.

And so I have sat with her and just kind of shown her or like explained to her, okay, can you see in this moment when you’re telling yourself how overwhelmed you are, and then you start kind of listing the list of 100 things that you think you have to do. And you’re already deciding every one of them is going to be hard and it just kind of like creates more overwhelm and creates you being very upset.

And so for her she gets really interested in that because she’s like, oh yeah, you’re right. And it’s not that it prevents it from happening, because it still happens. But I just know there are those moments of just kind of showing her what happens if you stop telling yourself that there’s so much work, that it’s all going to be hard. Like what if we just took those off the table, then what, right? And she’s like, oh, I’d probably just start working on the first thing and get to work and just do it.

And now that we’ve kind of talked through it a few times she has also noticed that on the other side of it the things are almost, pretty much every time the things are never as hard as she thinks that they’re going to be, right, the way she gets herself worked up about it. So that’s been really fun and really interesting.

I will say when we moved, so we moved a couple of years ago and we moved into a new house and she changed school districts. And it was right in the middle of the pandemic, so she had been home doing virtual school for a while. And I did actually hire her a coach when we moved because she was having lots of anxiety about moving and making new friends and all of that.

The coach’s name is Sami Halvorsen, I believe. Look her up, she’s amazing. She coaches teens, specifically teen girls I believe, but don’t quote me on that. But Charlie worked with her, or my daughter worked with her for a short time and I do think she was maybe a little too young, but I could sometimes hear their call and hear how great the coaching was.

And of course, because I love coaching so much I’m always open to hiring coaches for my kids if and when they need or want them. So that is definitely on the table in the next year or so, I would say. If she continues to feel that anxiety and just be overwhelmed by all the things, of course that’s on the table, as is therapy and all the things.

I love introducing all of the stuff to my kids because I didn’t have that when I was younger. I had more of a like just keep it to yourself, don’t tell anyone. I wasn’t told that, but that’s just kind of what I told myself. No one can know, right? Like keep it to yourself. So no, I don’t actively coach my kids. But we do have conversations around all of it. And I’m so grateful to have the coaching tools to kind of explain to them like this is why you’re feeling this way.

Okay, next question, who is your stylist? And do you work with her all the time, or just for photo shoots? So the answer to that is her name is Samantha Brown. You can find her on Instagram, @SamanthaBrownStyle. And her website is the same, samanthabrownstyle.com.

I work with her, I don’t just work with her for photo shoots. But there are different ways to work with her. And if you’re interested, obviously, go to her website and check out the options or go to her Instagram and see how cute she is.

And the way I work with her is she does, we did like an intake call. I’ve been working with her for a while now. And then I just paid one fee, we did an intake call, she asked me a bunch of questions. And she has my phone number, and so every once in a while she’ll just send me some photos of things or some like, hey, I think you might like this or I think you might like this.

And if I say yes, then she will just order them and send them to me. And it’s amazing. And I’ll try them on and take pictures of myself and send them back to her. Or say like, no, I hate this or it doesn’t fit, I need a different size or whatever.

So it kind of varies. Sometimes she’ll just be thinking of me and she’ll just send me things and I’ll either say yes or no. But I don’t work with her, like she doesn’t just like dress me every day, right? Like when you see me on Zoom or if you’ve ever worked with me, like those are just clothes probably that I’ve picked up myself that I’m comfortable in at my house.

But I do love to have some nice things for when I travel or when, and definitely when I do photo shoots. So I don’t just work with her for photo shoots, but I do work with her more or I’ll tell her like, hey, I have this thing coming up. And so it won’t necessarily be like the week before she’ll help me pick out every single thing I’m going to wear for the photo shoot, although I’m sure she would if I told her that’s what I wanted.

But she knows that thing is coming up and so she’ll help me pick some things and she’ll send me some things, I’ll send them back, or need a different size, or say yes I love them or whatever. So it’s like more of a curated over time project is what it feels like. I hope that answered your question. Definitely check her out, she’s amazing.

Next question, I’d love to hear what are your personal practices, reflective, thought work, or otherwise, that you have, the reasons you love them, and how they support you and your clients growth? Okay, this is something that I feel like I could record an entire podcast on. But I’m going to give you cliff’s note answer to this question. And I’m going to split it up into two, into personal and into business.

So when I think about like, what are my practices? What are the things that I’m practicing right now? I am always, whether it’s personal or business, working on just creating more awareness within myself. More awareness about myself, for myself, all of that.

So when it comes to my business, right now one thing that I am working on is just believing, almost like believing the results that I’m creating and believing that I am in charge of them. I have noticed this thing that’s been coming up recently where when I think about how much money I’ve made, or oh, here’s a really good example.

So as I’m recording this, we just opened registration for Coach Week a few days ago. And I’ve been posting about it and talking about it, but not very much. And I just looked and we have almost 700 people registered. My brain can’t understand that. That is like, what in the world?

And I see that showing up in a lot of ways, just like the podcast numbers, right? When I said like how many downloads I have, or how much money I’ve made, or really any of the things. Fill in any of the results I’ve created recently in my business, my brain really wants to disregard it like, oh, well, a little bit, a little flavor of like, that’s a fluke. That’s not the exact thought that I have about it. But more like I have no idea how I created that. That’s just very personal, like the things that are coming up for me right now in my business.

So I’ve just been really creating, trying to create awareness around how did I create this? And also creating awareness around what am I missing out on when I don’t allow myself to believe that I created this, right? When I don’t allow myself to take full credit for it, full responsibility for it.

Not only in a positive way, like what am I missing out on on maybe feeling or on showing up differently? But also, how is it affecting my coaching, or my programs, or my, you know, any of the things I’m creating? Like how is it affecting that when I’m not believing I’m the person who can create those types of results?

So I don’t know if that makes sense as you’re listening or if I’m explaining it correctly, but that’s just something that I’ve been working on every day. So what that looks like for me is maybe a little bit of, I hesitate to call it journaling because I don’t really know that I would describe it as journaling. But more like a little bit of thought work like on a piece of paper.

But then also like really sitting with myself, my hand on my heart and on my stomach, taking deep breaths and just allowing myself to think about that version of me, right? So the thought work is a little more like what am I missing out on when I’m not believing it? And then there’s the piece of just breathing and really feeling in my body that that’s who I am.

When it comes to personally, one thing I’m working on a lot right now is my health. I can’t remember if I mentioned it on here or not, but those of you that have worked with me or are my clients I know you know because I told you because I had to take a couple weeks off.

But I recently had surgery and in the last couple of years I’ve actually had a couple surgeries and I noticed recently that I’ve just been having these thoughts of like not really trusting my body. And just kind of feeling disappointed about what I believe I can do with my body or not do with my body. Or just feeling kind of not great sometimes and just getting very frustrated with myself and frustrated with my health and my body.

And when I do that, when I stay in that frustration, then it just does a spiral into like okay, well if I’m already frustrated, then like who cares? I don’t need to do anything extra to take care of it because it’s just like how it is. Versus really learning to trust my body, really learning to feel into like this is how my body feels right now. You know, this is a good day, or this is a bad day or whatever, and just being okay with whatever that is.

And really stepping into, because in the past I’ve done big things, right? I’ve like run marathons and I’ve just been very, very active. I used to do a lot of backpacking. And so now when I think about that, my brain goes straight to those things. And then it’s like, well, if I can’t do those, then I’m just going to do nothing. And that doesn’t make sense, of course, right?

So I’ve really been working on like, okay, what’s just one thing I can add today? So I’ve started walking a lot, which my dog loves. And even just saying this on the podcast is very like, I just can’t say, like how lame, I’m just like walking every day. But it feels great, which is part of what I’m working on is feeling good in my body.

And it does serve so many purposes, even if it’s not attached to some like giant, huge goal, right? So that is a big thing that I’m working on right now personally, and that takes a different shape kind of every day.

Sometimes it’s just sitting with like, okay, I don’t feel well today, here’s what my body feels like, this is what’s going on, and it’s okay. And I can still love and trust it. And then some days, it’s like, okay, let’s walk a little further, let’s do this other thing that sounds fun, I’m feeling great today. You know, whatever that is.

Overall, I would say, and for some of you this is going to be probably very foreign. But when I think about how I create my routines and how I kind of do my self-evolvement, my personal practices, for me they’re always changing. And a lot of that has to do with I just have a very rebel brain. So if you tell me I have to do the same thing every day and like here’s a schedule and this is what you have to do. I’m definitely not going to do it. That’s just how I operate.

I have fought against this for years and years. It’s a really good thing I’m an entrepreneur and don’t work in a strict office somewhere. But whether it’s coming from me, if I try to tell myself that or if somebody else tries to tell me, the first thing my brain is going to do is just like, “Nope, absolutely not, that sounds terrible.” So I really kind of take it day by day. And so my practices might look totally different from day to day.

Sometimes I might do thought work where I’m actually writing things on paper. But sometimes it might just be more of like a walking meditation, or I’m just practicing walking, being outside, taking deep breaths, and feeling my body. So there you go. That’s the answer, no right or wrong way.

Next question is what life lessons keep showing up for you? And why do you think you haven’t mastered them yet? This is an interesting question. My gut response to that is I don’t know that there are any, not like big ones that keep showing up.

Actually, that’s not true, something just popped into my mind. So one thing that I have always had to work on and that I am currently working on right now is that it’s okay to ask for help.

Now, I’ve gotten a lot better about this in some ways. But recently I have noticed, and this kind of comes back to some of the health things I was just talking about. Recently I’ve noticed my resistance to asking for help when it seems like I shouldn’t have to, right? So like if I have the capacity to do all of these things myself, why would I ask for help, right?

So for example, we are thinking about hiring a house manager, or, you know, a house manager/nanny slash whatever title you want to give it. I’m in the process of writing the job description for it. And it has been so interesting noticing how often I’m like, “Oh, I can’t ask for help for that. I can’t ask for help with that.”

And I think that this is true for all of us where when we just have patterns of things that we have learned when we were young and learned over our lifetime. Definitely when I was young I think that I, you know, I lived with a single mom for a lot of the time and with my grandparents for short periods of time.

And I think there was a little bit of like, this is all on me. Like I have to figure it out myself because these humans, these other adults in my life, not because they weren’t capable, but because I was deciding this thing, that they just like don’t have time to handle all the things for me. So I have to figure it out. I have to do it.

And I think in some ways that has served me really well, right? Of course, it creates lots of resilience and as an entrepreneur it is very useful to think like I can figure this out myself, I don’t need anyone else. I don’t need anyone to tell me or to help me. But then it crosses a line at some point of me just taking on too many things.

So that is currently one of the things that I’m working on. And one thing that I feel like life just keeps handing me this thing of like, I don’t usually use this wording, but like the universe just keeps kind of piling it on. Like okay, you think you can take all this pressure? Let’s just see.

It’s like that song, what is it Encanto, Encanto? I’m not sure exactly sure how you say it, but the pressure song, I very much relate to that. My sister actually texted me at one point, I have a sister who’s about 10 years younger than me. And she sent me a text and she said, “Have you heard this song?”

And she sent me the song and she said, “All I can think about is you when I hear it.” And I thought that was really interesting, because I have never thought of myself as being the person who just like takes on all the things, especially in my family. But it was interesting to hear her thoughts about it from her perspective. So that’s the one, that’s the one that popped into my mind.

And I want to address the second part, which is why do I think I haven’t mastered it yet? And I think my answer for that is just that I don’t think when it comes to anything like this that there is ever a point that it’s just like check, done, like mastered forever, this will never come back up. You know, you’ll never think about this again. Especially if it’s patterns that you’ve developed over a lifetime, right?

So for everybody listening, I’m sure you can probably think of something, if you allow yourself the time, where it’s like, oh, this thing keeps coming up, and it’s totally fine, right? Like, it’s not a problem. It could just be oh, here’s just another layer of it that I wasn’t aware of, of course, this is coming up, right? Of course this is the way I think about things. I’ve had 40 years to think about things this way and so I shouldn’t expect that just overnight I’m just going to master it and it’ll just never be there again.

Okay, next question, which I think might be the last for today is, tell me your thoughts on social media. And I’m curious why you don’t post many pictures of your kids or husband. So I’m actually going to answer this, I think it’s like two separate questions. And the first one is really broad, obviously, but I will tell you all my thoughts about social media.

But I’m going to answer the other one first because it’s an obvious answer for me. So when I think about social media and the way I use social media is very much for my business. It didn’t used to be that way. So if you like scroll way back, you will see more photos of my kids and my family. Although I’ve taken a lot of them down, or hidden them or deleted them or whatever.

And the reason that I don’t is as I grow my business and as I have friends on Facebook and on Instagram or, you know, followers on Instagram who I have no idea who they are, it just feels like if I’m going to post photos of my husband or of my kids, that I should get their consent. So I do, I do that. So when you’re seeing photos of my husband and of my kids, those have been approved by them. I ask them, “Is it okay if I post this?”

So I’ll post an occasional family photo every once in a while just to say like, hey, I have a family. Here they are, I love them, all the things. And then when we travel and when we’re on vacation, I will put more things in my stories that have my husband and kids.

But just in general, I don’t. I don’t know, I just don’t, I feel like that’s up to them, right? Like my social media is my social media and I use it for certain things. And because I have such a large audience of people that I don’t know, which is very different than someone using, let’s say like Facebook, and they’re just friends with their family and with people they know, and they have their settings set in a way that strangers can’t come to their profile and see all the things. I think that’s really different, but I don’t use it like that.

So I just always make sure I get consent from my family before I post photos of them. Now, it does work in my favor that my kids are a little bit older and they’re old enough to give me that consent, right? So I don’t hear that as like, that’s what I think you should do. Those are just my personal views.

I also think my kids are old enough, especially my older daughter is old enough to understand. She does not have social media, but she understands what it is. And I just don’t want her thinking it’s a place where you just post every photo of yourself all of the time just because and like letting everybody see it, right?

So now that gets into my thoughts about social media in general. So when it comes to business I think, I have thoughts on both sides, right? I think it’s amazing. It is an incredible way to market yourself for free. Especially if you are just, you know, posting to people that you already know, that you’re friends with. It is an amazing place to network and to create community.

Obviously I use, if you’re in my programs, you know I use Facebook for my community. I don’t know if that will always be the case, but it is what I use right now. I have tried other platforms and I just don’t love them. They just don’t do all the things that I want them to do. So there’s that side.

And then I also think there is a side of it that can be a little dark and that can, in some ways it allows us to express our opinions and to tell people what we’re thinking all the time. But I also think it allows us to express our opinions and tell people what we’re thinking all of the time and sometimes that can be taken advantage of or used to say negative things about people and all of that, right? So there’s that whole like dark side of social media, but there’s also the really amazing space.

If the question was a little more like, I can imagine maybe this is what the person who asked me this, maybe what you were really wondering is I see that you don’t post a ton of personal stuff on social media, or that I’m not on social media all the time. And I would say 100% yes, that is true. I do not enjoy, I’m not like a social media scroller in general, there are exceptions which I will tell you. But I just don’t love to just be on social media and scroll and scroll, it’s just not something I enjoy doing.

So I also don’t enjoy, because that’s not where I am and it’s not what I’m doing all the time, I don’t enjoy posting all the things about my life. It’s not because I don’t want people to know or because I don’t want them to see like the messiness. It has nothing to do with any of that. It is 100% just because that is not where I love spending my time.

When you go to my Instagram, for example, I do post personal things on there sometimes. But a lot of what you will see it is I have written the things, but my amazing business manager puts together a lot of what you see on there. So the photos, all the beautiful things on my Instagram, my business manager 100%, I will give her all of the credit. She does all of it. And she is magic. All right?

So she is the one spending more time. I do all my own replying and all of that. So if you ever send me a message or I respond to you on social media, that is actually me. But as far as what you see in the graphics and all of that, she is totally behind that and she is a genius. So there’s that. I don’t know if that really answers your question, but I hope it does.

And I just have to say, this is so fun. I love answering all of the questions. I actually am going to keep this open. I’m going to keep the type form, which is what I used to gather these questions, I’m going to keep it open. So if you have more questions, you can go there. You can submit questions at any time and I will either answer them as I go as I’m recording podcasts, or I will save them for my next Q&A, which I assume will be at 150 episodes.

So I’m so grateful for you. I’m so glad that you’re here. Thank you again, so much. I mean it, I cannot believe 100 weeks in a row. Like for me, you know, I told you I have a very rebel brain that’s like, “No way, I’m not doing that. I’m not going to be consistent. I’m not whatever.” Making it to 100 episodes feels like the biggest celebration of my life. I’m just going to throw that out there. And part of it is because I love it so much.

Oh, oh my gosh, I almost forgot. So I didn’t share, I did say there are a couple things about social media I love. So, I’m just, sorry, all over the place. I’m just going to go back to that because I do think you’ll appreciate this about me. I’m not just like, oh, no social media ever.

I do love ads on Instagram because they sell me a lot of amazing things that I would never know about. And this is a totally guilty pleasure that I feel almost embarrassed to admit, but I love scrolling TikTok. Like I could just watch videos all day, every day. I could get sucked in. It’s like the one platform where I could really get sucked in.

I don’t really use it for useful things, although my younger daughter loves animals so there are a couple farm pages and there’s like a beekeeper that we follow. And just a few people that do things with animals. She does not have it, but sometimes we will sit together and like look at all the things because I do think that’s one thing that’s amazing about social media, is how it can kind of transport you to someone else’s, like where they are, what they’re doing, right?

Like this beekeeper that we follow, she blows my mind. She is like the bee whisperer. I don’t actually know what her name is, but she has this amazing like soft voice and she just talks to the bees. And she goes and like works with the bees. And it has literally helped my daughter not be afraid of bees. And me, actually, not that I was like terrified of bees. But now I think bees are the coolest.

So for that reason, I think it can be pretty amazing. So whether you hate it or love that about me, there we are. That’s all of my truths. I hope that you enjoyed this episode and I will be back next week answering some more questions. Good 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.