“Believe it or not, we’re all very wise, and deep down, we know what’s best for us. When I’m coaching a client, that wisdom is revealed.”
Welcome back to the show, friend! I’m grateful to have you here today. On today’s episode, I’m going to be talking all about life coaching; particularly what life coaching with me is like.
Now you may be someone who just tunes into this podcast in order to learn and grow and that is COMPLETELY fine. As I mentioned at the end of episode 2, there are people in my life who I ADORE and I haven’t paid them a dime.
It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s because they don’t have an offer that speaks to me to buy. I’m either not ready for what they do offer (like a business coach I heavily follow who only works with multi-6-figure or 7-figure entrepreneurs and financially I’m not there yet)…
OR I just don’t need what they offer (like a mindset coach who does incredible work and I enjoy her style and honesty, but I don’t feel like I need the mindset work her course offers).
My purpose in doing this podcast isn’t necessarily to get you to coach with me, it’s to help you grow in your stage of life however I can.
But….I DO want to explain what I do offer and who I do work with in case you do feel called to work with me and that’s what I’ll be covering in detail today.
IN THIS EPISODE, I SPECIFICALLY COVER:
- What coaching is
- Who coaching is for (and not for)
- What coaching can create in your life (and what it won’t create)
- What to do next if you feel coaching with me is right for you
I must admit, at the time of this recording I’m approaching year 5 of my business in the coming months and I’m just now at a place where I’m owning what I do and who I work with.
I’ve shied away from telling people that I’m a life coach and even those who do know and follow me (like you), I’ve kept it on the back-burner what I offer.
This has done NOBODY any favors, but especially those who I can help. I’ve been privileged enough to work with 100s of women now despite it all and I’ve given many of them life-changing transformational results.
To be honest, it’s been a lot for me to handle that something I do and I create can help someone so much. It’s been a journey to owning and accepting my greatness for sure.
But, today isn’t about me.
Today is about YOU and it’s about you understanding if now or at some point in time working with me beyond this podcast is a good fit for you.
So, let’s jump right in by talking about what life coaching is and what it isn’t.
Be sure to listen to the episode above to get the scoop!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
→ Continue the conversation in my free online community
→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training
Full transcript:
Episode 3: IS COACHING FOR YOU?
What does a life coach do? | Life coach benefits
This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 3, Is Coaching For You?
[music]
Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.
[music]
Welcome back to the show, friend. I’m grateful to have you here today. On today’s episode, I’m going to be talking all about life coaching, particularly what life coaching with me is like. Now you may be someone who just tunes into this podcast in order to learn and grow and that is completely fine. As I mentioned at the end of episode two, there are people in my life who I adore and I haven’t paid them a dime. I haven’t worked with them in any capacity beyond their free content.
It’s not that I don’t want to work with these people, It’s because they don’t have an offer that speaks to me to buy. I’m either not ready for what they offer. Like a business coach, I heavily follow who works with only multi-six-figure or seven-figure entrepreneurs, and financially I’m just not there yet or I just don’t need what they offer.
Like a mindset coach who I follow, who does incredible work, and I enjoy her style and honesty, but I don’t feel like I need the mindset work her course offers. My purpose in doing this podcast isn’t necessarily to get you to coach with me, it’s to help you grow in your stage of life however I can. I want you to listen to this show week after week and get what works for you, what inspires you, what motivates you, what changes you. I also do want to explain what I do offer and who I do work with in case you ever feel called to work with me. That’s what I’ll be covering in detail today.
Specifically, today I’m covering what coaching is, who coaching is for and not for, what coaching can create in your life and what it won’t create, and finally, what to do next if you feel coaching with me could be right for you. I must admit at the time of this recording, I am approaching year five in my business. I’m just now at a place where I’m owning what I do and who I work with. I’ve shied away from telling people that I’m a life coach in my personal life. Yes. Somebody asked me what I do, sometimes, I even just say, I’m a stay-at-home mom, to be honest with you.
Even those who do know and follow me, like you, I keep it on the back burner sometimes what I offer. I haven’t put it out there. This has done nobody any favors, but especially those who I can help. I’ve been privileged enough to work with hundreds of women. Now, despite me kind of shying away saying what I do and I’ve given them some life-changing transformational results.
To be honest, it’s hard for me to say that to you. It’s hard for me to handle some days that I do this and I create some help in people’s lives for that much because you heard my story just in episode two. Just a few years ago, I was a girl who wasn’t even trusting my own intuition. Now, I get to help other people live their best lives as our best selves. I mean, who does that? Right? That is the power of coaching my friend.
Today isn’t about me and my coaching journey. You already heard that. Today is about you. It’s about you understanding if now, or at some point in time, working with me beyond this podcast is a good fit for you. Let’s jump right in by talking about what life coaching is and what it isn’t. Now, I know life coaching is a newer field and not understood by many. Heck, I did not even understand what life coaching was until I was introduced to it as a potential profession a few years ago. What I did know about coaching left a lot of credibility to me.
With that said, just know it is okay to not know what this field is all about and how it can help you. This is partly why I’m doing this episode today. I want to help educate people on the field of what coaching is because it’s going to take the world by storm. The profession of life coaching is gaining traction by millions of dollars each year, millions, friend. Can you believe that many people are using coaching? I can’t. Some predict that everyone will have a life coach and it will be something that’s common as having a gym membership crazy, huh?
Okay. Let’s get into it. What is life coaching? Well, according to the International Coaching Federation also known as the ICF, which is one of, if not the biggest regulatory boards for the coaching industry, they define coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. That’s a definition I apply heavily in the coaching segment of my business.
Which means when I’m coaching someone one-on-one, I am a partner to them, meaning I am not acting as if I know more at all my teaching or mentoring or consulting them in any way. Instead, I’m asking the client open-ended thought-provoking questions in order for them to find the answers within themselves to solve their own problems.
Believe it or not, we are all very wise and we know what’s best for us deep down. It simply takes someone holding this space for us and having the skill to listen deeply because believe it or not, learning to listen deeply is a learned skill that until you’ve experienced having someone listen to you deeply, you have no idea how powerful it is to be seen in that kind of way. A coach asks questions based on what they’re hearing and putting together the patterns of what they’re hearing and somehow magically by the end of a session, most times a client has the answers and they’ve come up with those answers themselves. It is mind-blowing, friend.
When I first experienced coaching as a client, after a year of weekly therapy, I thought my coach didn’t know crap. I was so confused why she kept asking me for the answers to my problems and I seriously second guessed myself for making the investment in coaching. I thought, if I’m supposed to give myself all the answers, then why in the heck am I paying you? To be honest, for most people, coaching in that style where you sit back and let the client figure it all out on their own is not enough.
In time and in many, many sessions, a person would figure it out and realize how to tap into their answers within, but from what I’ve learned as a client and as a coach, there are ways to hack the system to make it faster and more efficient for someone. That involves me being in the role that’s being beyond a coach. If you were to ask what I do, I would tell you that my job title goes beyond coaching and that I consider myself a coach, and a teacher, and a strategist because the majority of what I do is teach. Then I use those teaching to strategize with clients on how to apply them in your lives.
I know this is confusing but stay with me. I promise it’s going to make sense in a minute. This podcast is a great example of that. I get on here and I teach you tips and strategies and tools to help you become a better version of yourself and create a better life. You may then come to me, say on social media, and ask, “Hey Lindsay, I loved your tip about applying my CliftonStrengths StrengthsFinder strengths to my marriage. How can I use this tip to help my husband and I become more intimate? We would talk through strategies on how to do that.
I would have some questions for you and you would be newer to me probably if you’re coming to me on social media. I wouldn’t really know your story, I wouldn’t know your background, you hadn’t learned my approval processes yet, and my systems. We would come up with strategies together, right? I’m not holding the space for you where I can listen to you and ask you questions to help you gain awareness you need within. Instead, I’m telling you if you have blank problem, or you want to improve blank area, here are some ways to change.
We’re strategizing together and I’m teaching you, right? I’m not just saying, “Hey, let me ask your questions and hold the space for you.” Now, to some coaches, they will not separate their definitions of what they do. They’ll just say, I’m a coach and they will teach you and strategize with you and mentor you and do all these things and they’ll call it a coach. That is fine and that is okay, but I am an ICF-trained coach. Remember that definition I gave you back there and so it kind of is hard for me to say that that’s coaching because to me I’ve been trained it’s been ingrained in me that that is not true coaching in its element. That’s why I’ve added that teacher and strategist role. Makes sense so far? I hope so. I currently have five online training courses where my role is similar. I’m a teacher and I’m a strategist for the most part. Someone purchases a course or courses for me, and I teach them how to improve. The difference between the podcast and someone purchasing a course for me is that a course is a proven process, meaning that I’m teaching them step-by-step how to do something. On the podcast it’s little bits and pieces of things and some of those processes are just part of my bigger systems, or I’m just giving you a motivational inspirational story to help you grow or get inspired, or you’re talking about something completely outside of the realm of what I even offer.
It’s just this general women’s issue that will help you beyond the scope of personal development. In my courses, you start with something in mind that you want to change and you and I work together through that process to help you create change. On the podcast, yes, I’m going to have ways for you to talk to me. I’m always available on social media and email and all of that stuff for the time being, I’m sure at some point my business will get large enough and I won’t be able to do that.
When you purchase something from me, I am there as a partner with you. That goes back to that core definition of coaching. We’re partnering together. I’m invested in you. You’ve invested in me and so am investing in you. We’re working together. I’m helping you. Not only through my courses that you’re going to go in, you’re going to learn things, but we are going to strategize together and we’ll talk about how we do that here in a bit. When you sign up for a course with me, not only do you gain a lifelong proven process for change, you gain my time and attention to help you through that.
Yes, because I know I said earlier that you have all the answers within, according to the core principles of coaching that I too believe, but it takes time to understand and find how to do that. The processes I teach in my course help you do that, but I need to guide you to keep going back and understanding those things for a few months so you start to get it. I really am coaching teaching you in essence how to coach yourself and I’m doing it in a way where you’re not having to spend a ton of money on me, and we’re not having to have a ton of one-on-one calls.
In essence, it’s really helping you out because you’re not going to have to spend as much money and it’s helping me out too, because I can help more people because I only have a limited one-on-one time. Let’s break it down in a real world example. A few years ago I had a client who came to me and she wanted help with her work-life balance. She loved to work and she was very successful at it, but she was a mom and now she was a single mom at that She needed to learn how to lessen her obsession and frankly her anxiety around work.
Also as a new single mom, she had some healing to do around her recent divorce. Her former husband had cheated on her and she felt a lot of sadness and anger around that. She had a budget of around a thousand dollars to spend on coaching and she wanted to feel and see the results fast. She didn’t want to sit around and wait to feel better. She wanted to feel better now and don’t we all, right?
We want to be fixed and everything better as of yesterday, I know I can still relate to this. I appreciate people who feel that way because I hear and I feel that they want to make changes fast. I know how to give them those changes. First, what I did is I took this client through my Life Luvers 21 day challenge course, this is an online course that teaches someone via videos and a private membership site the core tools for lifelong success. Each day for 21 days, they watch a video about a tool.
They write about that tool in their workbook and they use that tool there and then they post in the private clients only Facebook community answers to a few questions about what they discovered when using the tool for my feedback. What they’re doing there is they’re learning. I’m teaching them, they’re trying to start to coach themselves and their workbook as they’re using that tool, then they’re going to the Facebook community and I’m making sure that they’re doing things the way they need to go.
Then I’m asking them more questions, I’ll say, “Ooh, I see that you had the awareness there. Tell me more about that” or “what makes you do blah, blah, blah?”. I’m starting to ask those coaching questions so that they model after me and they can start to ask them within themselves as time goes on, see how I’m doing that? It’s really tricky. During this 21 day course, they’re also working on incorporating a daily habit in their life that ties into their bigger goal.
For this client that I gave example of just a bit ago, since her biggest goal was to work on her work-life balance. She said that for one hour a day she would play with her daughter with no work distractions, meaning no phone, no computer, no sitting there zoning out, thinking about work. She’s going to be completely present with her daughter. I notice how that maybe small and easy to do, but I tell people going through all of my courses and especially this one course, they need to make a habit that’s just outside their comfort zone to them.
I teach them how to ensure they’re making goals and habits right for them. See again, I’m teaching there right out of the gate to someone how to tap into their own wisdom, not listening to what anyone else says or thinks. People go through this course and tell me, “I am so mind blown, Lindsay, things are just clicking for me now.” Sure, I do think I’m a great teacher. I do think that is one of my greatest gifts in this world, but really they are so mind blown is because they’re learning how to understand themselves by listening to themselves.
Of course, when they listen to themselves, they’re going to get what they want. They’re going to go after what they want. They’re going to cut out all the noise and get there in a way that feels flipping amazing. After the Life Luvers 21 day challenge, the client was feeling great, so great in fact, she was getting off some of her medications for depression and anxiety just in 21 days. Of course she was working with her doctor through this.
Think about three weeks, that’s it, and she started to feel significantly better already, but we still had some work to do. We still had deeper healing to do and more things to do around her improving her life. We went through to Become An Unstoppable Woman course and that’s the course that this podcast was inspired by. It’s a 90 day course that is backed by neuroscience to work for the brain. This process teaches someone how to overcome the blocks that are stopping them from being their best self and creating their best life.
This is my program that’s most life-changing transformational and healing. Yes. I have five different programs, but if somebody comes to me and says, “I want the biggest bang for my buck’. I say, we’ve got to go through unstoppable. That is a course that is going to change everything. This is the course that many people say, myself included, is better than years and years of therapy. Now everybody’s different, but all those of us who did therapy and felt like we got nowhere, this is a course that changed the game.
How it works is it’s just like Life Luvers. It’s an online course with videos, but it’s different in that the pace is slower. Its videos are to be consumed and digested in a workbook every week instead of every day, then every week the client posts either in the Facebook community certain responses for my feedback there, or they can up level and spend a little bit more money and they can submit their entire workbook to me via email for that week,
so we can review all their answers via email privately, or they can up level even more and do a one-on-one call with me to go through their workbook and then take the workbook and go even deeper and a one-on-one call.
All right. There’s three different levels there. Now, in the unstoppable course, journaling is a huge part of this course, because, again, I am trying to teach someone how to find the answers on their own and coach themselves. Yes. In the unstoppable process I’m teaching a lot for sure, with a lot of different tools and strategies in that proven process, but really at the end of the day they’re learning again how to find their own wisdom, how to coach themselves.
For example, let’s go back to the client who struggled with the work-life balance and wanted to heal from her divorce. In the become an unstoppable woman process, she learned the patterns of thought as to why work was something she was getting anxious about. Sure. She loves work. She gets thrilling, thrilling, thrilling results from work, but she had this anxiety with it. She felt like she was addicted to it. Like it consumed her. We started to explore why that was and we started to see there were some patterns in her thought process that made her feel anxious around work and her value was tight work.
Now you may think, okay, Lindsay will, that’s a very small problem and to some it may be, this client had already a pretty good life. Yes. She was just recently divorced but she was doing well in life. It wasn’t like she was a negligent mother or anything. She wanted to be a better mother and she wanted to be a better worker and feel better in her life that was less anxious. To someone they may think, okay, well, that’s not a big enough problem for me to spend a thousand dollars on coaching and teach their own.
When you start to uncover this one problem in this course, you actually start to see beyond that. For example, when I went through coaching, one of my goals was to have a balanced life and to figure out what my profession was going to be, if that was going to be coaching or something else. I discovered way more than that. I discovered why I had some issues with my body. I had issues around dating, I discovered why that was. I had issues around my religion even. It just went on and on the awareness that I gained from the Unstoppable process. We look at everything in life and it is mind blowing, mind blowing to see the ways you’re sabotaging yourself without even realizing it.
I feel like everybody needs to do this work. I wish that they taught it in school, I wish that I could just give it out for free to everybody but I can’t. It has to be something that someone invest in, they take the time in and they work through. Let’s go back to this client, for example, as she started working through Unstoppable, she started to change her work-life balance and she said bye-bye to anxiety meds completely because of this.
Again, working with her doctor and the Unstoppable course helped her heal the pain of her ex because in that Unstoppable process, you learn how to emote and heal in a way that again, I believe everybody should learn in school. It is very sad that only a small percentage of the population gets to learn how to heal properly and learn how to look at their mind in a different way.
Does God help you do those things if you’re a religious person? Absolutely, but the Unstoppable process will help you connect with God in a whole new way. A lot of times when I’m saying, “She did this,” or, “I taught her this” or whatever, what I’m really doing is, I’m allowing somebody’s mind to get out of the way so that it can connect better to a higher power, if they believe in that.
Now I work with clients who are heavily Christian, I work with clients who are Atheists, and I work with everything else in between there but I work with a lot of women who want to connect more with God and they’re able to do that through this Unstoppable process. That’s again, where I get out of the way and I allow them to, in essence, coach themselves, or they can view it as God coaching them, whatever it is, and they’re able to create a flipping amazing, better life than they already had.
Now you may think, “Okay, well, I must be completely messed up in order to need coaching, Lindsay, or work in your Unstoppable process, because it sounds like that’s the process that you really want everyone to go through.” That is true, I really would love to take everybody, as I said, in the entire world through my Unstoppable process because we’ve all been hurt in some ways, even just small things in our kid world.
Those things need healing because our brain didn’t process it correctly, just based on neuroscience stuff that I won’t get into here but we require a certain level of healing with that and so that Unstoppable process helps us do that. You may call it snow-flaky to believe in this kind of stuff but I call it flipping smart as hell to deal with your emotions.
Again, the results are incredible, life feels better, your health improves, you can actually live the way you want to live, you aren’t a victim to things like work as my client example once was, or shopping or gossip or technology, or love or sex or whatever, food is a big one too. You don’t have to live that way anymore. Now I know I’m going on a salesy, “I love this stuff so much,” rant but I do wish that I didn’t have to charge money for my courses and services because some days, it’s really not about the money. Actually, most days, it’s not about the money.
As I said, this client who went through this process with me only invested $1,000. If that’s a lot to you? I get it. I was a single mom, when I invested in coaching and the $1,000 was a lot to me in that phase of life and for those who couldn’t make that investment, there was a time that I gave scholarships. What happened is those scholarship recipients they got so-so results, or many times they didn’t even finish or start the course they were even gifted. They would work so hard to gain the scholarship and then that was it.
There is a psychology with an investment and I see that now. When you invest in yourself, especially if it’s a figure that you’re scared about investing, you show up. You put your best effort out there, because your booty is on the line of, “Oh my gosh, I just invested this money, I better get the results that I want.” I know in my life, I’ve spent $1,000 on a lot of other things and they were more exciting things to be honest with you in some ways, like a shopping trip to Nordstrom’s, home improvement projects, things for my wedding but those things faded in time.
Coaching? Those results have not faded, they have only allowed me to improve time and time again, because not only did I improve that first time I went through the process, but I have a process now to continue to improve over and over and over and over again. Not only that, I don’t have to waste my time anymore on personal development stuff even though I love personal development so very much. I’m a personal development junkie, I soak it up.
It’s a passion of mine, but I flipping need it. I don’t need to go and do something and invest in anything else because I feel like crap or because I need to up-level my life even, I know how to do that stuff. That is where that Unstoppable process and the Life Luvers challenge tools, that is what was the game changer for me and that is what I get to give everybody else.
It’s just so exciting and so fun. Now, there is a side note that I want to say here really quick, is that I know it’s really scary to invest in something especially coaching because A, it’s a newer profession. Two, it’s not something tangible that you’re going to get per se, like, you go to Nordstrom, you walk out with some jeans and a shirt and a jacket or whatever. Coaching is like, “What am I going to get from this? What are going to be my tangible results other than I’m going to feel better or do that?”
I know that it’s so scary and fast and you may think, “Oh my gosh, what if it doesn’t work for me?” That’s why in any of the courses that I offer, I have a 30-day refund policy because you will know in a few weeks, if not a few days, if your investment is going to be worth it. I really strive to knock everyone’s socks off when they work with me in a variety of ways that I keep secret here.
I don’t want to share it out there because I want to surprise you as you’re in there but I truly want people to leave after working with me saying it was the best investment of their life. I know I’m not for everyone, I know that I cannot give everyone the results that are life changing and amazing. In fact I’m probably not for at least 95% of the population. Which brings me to my next point, which is, who is coaching for and not for?
Now I’m going to cover here who I work with and I don’t work with. The coaching industry, though, is vast and varied so each coast is different. For me, these are my guidelines that I have learned over time of what I want and what I don’t want. Keep that in mind, these are mine. Mine only. First off, you must be a woman, I do not work with men, period.
It’s not my thing. I’m not skilled at it. I’m not passionate about it at this time, helping women is my zone of genius. That’s where my genius lies and that is why my heart beats, is to help women. I know I’m being exclusionary, but I’m sorry, that’s just where I work. Number two, you can be a woman of any age, however, most of my clients are in their mid 20s to early 40s.
Younger than mid 20s is usually too young, they don’t have the self-awareness yet or the maturity that coaching requires. Although I have made exceptions with some of my younger clients, and many times I have to work with them solely one-on-one because they need a ton of hand holding and that’s the only way they’re going to get the results that they need so that’s going to be expensive.
Sometimes too, a parent is involved, which can be a little bit tricky, as well, just because at that age, parents really want a certain result for their kids, they may not want it. Again, I really like to start working with somebody when they’re in their mid 20s but there’s always exceptions. Now, on the flip of that, if a client is older than their early 40s, sometimes they’re just not attracted to working with me because they think I’m too young.
Now I am in my mid 30s. I know sometimes I appear younger, just because of my youthful energy people tell me, I don’t know. I’m not that young but I get it. If I’m not older than you or your same age, you might not be attracted me and that’s totally cool. I will also say, to be frank, if somebody has got to be extremely passionate by the time they’re in their mid 40s, about changing their life and I’m talking hugely passionate here.
Otherwise, it’s just not going to happen in my experience. There’s just too much drive and energy that’s needed to change the patterns of thought and habit and as we age we become more set in our ways. There’s nothing wrong with that but again, you’ve got to be a major go-getter to do this kind of work. Which brings me to my number three point of my guidelines of working with me and that is you must be intensely motivated for change and you must be willing to do hard things.
You heard at the intro of this podcast that I work with goal-getting, fear-facing women, that’s just a fancy way of me saying, “Hey, you better be motivated, and you better be ready to look at your crap.” That’s what we’re going to do together. The work that I do is not always easy. I talk about how awesome it feels and how amazing it is but it’s going to feel rough when we’re working together.
You’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone with new habits and ways of thinking, it requires you to look at yourself in ways that aren’t always pleasant. It requires you to lean into hard things in order to appropriately heal them. It’s not a joy ride during the process some days. The end result is incredible and awesome, but you’ve got to be willing to push through those pain points to make it happen. You’ve got to show up for yourself consistently, and it may seem easy to some to be able to do this, or they think, “Oh yes, I’ll definitely show up.”
I will tell you, no matter what, it is an adjustment. Many times a client comes to work with me because something has pissed them off enough to demand the change in their lives for themselves. It’s something like a divorce or break up, a job promotion that didn’t happen, a relationship with a family member that’s not improving, an accident, a behavior in themselves that they’re finally realizing it’s damaging.
Another year has passed where they didn’t start their business or it’s not growing. That is giving them that motivation for change. That is so exciting to be like, “No more, I’m not putting up with this behavior any longer.”
If you go back to my story, my pain point was, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with my life and I think that’s going to be coaching, but I’m not sure. Then really in the back of my mind, my pain point was, “Oh my gosh, why do I keep attracting the same kind of crappy guys?”
I didn’t want to admit it out loud at the time. That is what coaching gave me that fuel. It fueled my passion for change.
Now, sometimes I get clients who are equally as incredible and passionate and awesome. They’re not necessarily having this big life-changing event per se. They just have an open mind. An open mind enough to say, “I crave to know more.” Meaning they listened to this podcast and something clicks for them so much that they think, “Holy moly, I must know how to change this thing that I didn’t even know was a thing, but I don’t want it to be a thing anymore.” Their desire for learning is so strong that they don’t need the life event to get motivated, they just want to know how to better themselves.
To be honest, while the clients who have life-changing events are super fun to work with because they were like me, they’ve got that fire under their belly. Those who enjoy learning and growing just as a fun side thing, they’re there just to enjoy the process of growth, which is so cool too. I will say that the most successful clients I’ve had are the ones who enjoy personal development work at the end of the day.
Yes, they may be very motivated for change, but they have a passion there with it too. Because of that passion, they use this work over and over and over again. They’re the ones who are in the top 10% of clients because they have just come back for more and continuously change and get those ongoing results. Now, even if somebody doesn’t have that passion, they come to me, they work with me one time, they get great results and they are super satisfied and I am super happy for them. I am just talking about here that you don’t have to be in that top 10% of clients.
I really find that actually most of my clients I would consider in the top 10%, and there’s that middle ground of people who got great results, maybe the first time or they worked with me one or two times, and then they moved on and then there’s that bottom barrel.
I just want to quickly touch on a few things that are red flags to me now, because I don’t want any more people in that bottom barrel. I’ve started to get really picky about who I let in, especially into my unstoppable course that I keep entering because I only want rockstars in that course.
Here are a couple of things that I know now are red flags. Number one, if somebody is living life completely for others, that’s a red flag. I have a lot of clients who have people-pleasing tendencies. Hell, I had huge people-pleasing tendencies when I started coaching.
They have enough awareness and self-worth to see that those behaviors are damaging and they still have some spark in themselves to at least do something for themselves. For example, let’s take a stay-at-home mom or a mom of really young kids. They are in the quintessential role in my mind where you can be completely living for others. If a stay at home, mom or a mom of little ones comes to me and says, “Lindsay, I want coaching but my family is my everything. It’s super demanding right now and I just do not have the time to take for myself.
I’m not willing to do it.” Or “I know I need to take it. I have the time, but I just feel so guilty when I do it.” I would say to them, listen, if you don’t have the time to take for yourself right now, that’s okay. Come back to me when you do, otherwise, this is not going to work for you.
Two, if you feel super guilty, when you take time for yourself, we can work through that through my processes, but it’s going to be really uncomfortable for you. Really uncomfortable for a few weeks. You got to be willing to live in that discomfort of prioritizing yourself just for a little bit for a few months during that process. Then that guilt is going to start to go away.
Then number three, if you’re just not willing to take time for yourself at all, we are definitely not a good fit to work together at all. That’s my number one red flag. They live life completely for others, and they’re not willing to change them. Number two, if somebody has a long list of health and or mental problems, I’ve learned from doing these almost five years now that if they’re listening to me, all these problems that they have, they probably aren’t going to do that well in coaching.
Will they improve by coaching with me? Yes. Will it be life-changing? Probably not, because it’s one of two things. If somebody has a ton of health problems, they really just need to focus on improving their health and getting well first. Which I know is a catch 22, because if you work on your mind, your health is going to improve. I used to think back in the day, “Well, I’ll just work with them, I’ll improve their mind and that’ll improve their health.” They saw benefits from that, but it wasn’t enough. That brings me to reason number two.
I’m going to get some feedback on this one I already know, but I feel like I need you to just put this out in the air in the open because this is just what I’ve discovered. There are a lot of people who like to play the victim card in life. They use their health as a way to do that. Now I’m not saying that is true for everybody. There are legitimate illnesses out there. There’s legitimate people who have a string of bad luck. As I’m recording this podcast, the past two months, my family has had cold and flu and all this crap handed to us.
I know that’s my new little things in the big scheme of things, but I know that I’m not just saying that all of this has made up in your mind. There are some people who are addicted to playing the victim card because of that. It takes a lot of drive and a lot of ongoing work in my unstoppable course, to doing it over and over and over again, with a lot of my support to change a lot of these victimy beliefs and to do a lot of healing that has caused maybe some of these health issues in time.
That takes a lot of energy that most victims just don’t have to be honest with you. Although I can help these people with a lot of health problems, it’s going to be a bigger investment for this person because they’re going to need a lot of my support and they may not get the life-changing results that I really want to be able to give somebody.
Now the third thing that is on my red flag, “ahh, I don’t think this is a good fit”, is if somebody has very, very little self-confidence and self-love. Now I help a lot of women improve their confidence and self-worth. I’m not saying I work with all rock stars. If somebody has so little self-worth that they get really uncomfortable, just talking about some of the things that they’re great at, or again if they just love being in this victim role or they just put everybody before themselves. I’m going into my number one and two red flags here.
It’s just really hard for me to change those behaviors. It takes a lot of work on my end, a big investment on the client’s part, a lot of energy to be generated that maybe they just don’t have. I would say in those cases, I send somebody to therapy because I think that’s a really great role for therapy.
Now I will say on the podcast here, you may be thinking, well, “Lindsay, if I’m better for therapy or coaching.” I don’t know. There are so many different forms of therapy out there. A lot of therapy is very much like coaching now. They’re very action-oriented. They’re asking a bunch of questions.
The therapy that I was in back of the day was not like that. It was, “Okay tell me about your problems, let me tell you what I think, let me tell you what’s wrong with you and then you leave.” That wasn’t good for me.
Coaching is very much about, we see you as whole and complete as is. We want you to understand your past, understand how it can help you in the present, and then get you moving in the future to create some awesome, crazy results. Again, very action-oriented. In the end here, coaching truly is for someone who already has an okay, if not a good life, they just want to make it better.
Most of my clients have been successful in at least one area of life, meaning their career, their relationships or family, their wellbeing, et cetera. They just want to walk all the areas of life. They want that vision board. They want to say, “Heck, when I leave this earth, whenever that is, I have done it all.
I am not leaving with any regrets. Because not only am I going after the things I want to go after, but I’ve healed all the things that I wish I would have done differently too.” With that said, I know there’s a stigma around coaching and personal development that initially can make someone think there’s something called “wrong with their life” or “wrong with a person to seek it out.”
It’s just not true. Sure, the glass can always be half empty and be seen as, “Oh, well, Suzie is getting coaching because she can’t find her dream guy” or “Shelly’s getting coaching because she doesn’t have a business that makes enough money” but, to be honest, that needs to go. I know it’s hard to do and many times clients will tell me when they sign up to work with me that they are not telling anybody that they’re doing this. I totally get it. I felt the same way when I signed up for coaching. What clients realize in time, and what I realized in time two, is that they’re actually extremely smart and wise for making the investment in coaching, and taking the time to work on themselves because they live life differently in a way that few get to live.
They’re just on a different path, they’re living in a way that 99% of the population doesn’t get to do. I can try and explain it as best I can but I’m going to use an analogy here because I think that’s the best way for you to understand what I mean. Let’s imagine you are going to the mall, you pull up to the mall, and all the cars are stuck in traffic just to get into the mall because they’re so focused on this one certain path of getting into the parking lot.
As they’re waiting to get in the parking lot, these cars, they are full of emotion, they are throwing money out the window because they’re just so addicted to wasting money. They’re arguing with people in the car because they can’t control their emotions, and they want to sabotage their relationships. They’re boggled down with life, that they can’t even see that there is another pathway ahead. You pull up, you’re not bogged down with all this crap anymore and you instantly see another path. You wonder why others are taking that path, and fear that the path may be too easy because why wouldn’t others take it? Now there must be a catch. It’s too easy. You think there’s have got to be some risk involved but then you take the path, you’re up at the front near the mall within minutes, and you’re walking inside.
Yet you’re looking behind looking at all those cars still stuck in traffic so then you’re like, wow, this is incredible. I just found this awesome shortcut to escaping all these problems these people have. Now you get to go inside the mall and all the stores are offering you free samples of things that the store associates want to meet your every demand because they’re just so excited to have a customer inside.
Somehow you are smart enough to figure out how to get inside. Now that you’re inside you have to ensure you know who you are and what you want because now a lot of possibilities are coming your way. You have learned in time how to understand who you are and you aren’t going to fall for these salespeople’s traps to get you to sell you on things. You’re able to be fully present for the greatness of your life in this moment where you’re just walking in the mall, and everyone wants to work with you. You aren’t boggled down with fears or doubts or crappy emotions. You’re just filled with joy because you can’t believe how incredible and easy life can be.
Does that experience sound cool to you? Because that, to me is what coaching feels like. You see a path that few see to take, i.e. coaching and it seems so empty because it doesn’t seem like so many people are doing it. It must be full of crap but it’s not. You take the path, you’ve been given this blessed opportunity to see, here you are on this podcast, you’re seeing the coaching opportunity and you are taking it. Then you are going to this mall and this mall is this new form of life. That’s my analogy for life. You are so blessed that you get the opportunity to walk in that mall, and then be who you want to be.
That too is what coaching can give you. It can teach you on a very deep level, who you are, and how to go after those things so that you are not constantly being pulled in these different directions. I will tell you when you start coaching, a lot of possibilities are going to start coming your way and you better know who you are otherwise, it’s going to be too much. Again, that’s what coaching can give you.
Now, you heard in Episode Two of this show that coaching changed my life and now I’m blessed to help others. When you work with me, you aren’t just gaining a process that you go through once you’re gaining a life system to get you through anything. If you were able to go back to the client, I gave an example of, who was working on her work-life balance and healing from her ex. This client I’ve worked with for years off and on in my insolvable course many times as she’s wanted to uplevel in different areas of her life using that same process.
There’s only been a one-time investment on her part of $1,000 and she got to continuously use my support over and over and over again in the Facebook community. Now she could always invest in one on one calls. To be honest, she really doesn’t need them. She comes to the Facebook community. She has a question or presents a problem and because she’s become so skilled at the tools and processes I teach, she can go back to her tools, specifically journaling, and she can see what comes up, she can coach herself.
Sometimes she just needs me to guide her back there. Saying, “Okay, this is the tool you need to use,” or “Hey, ask yourself this question.” She really doesn’t need me that much anymore except for these little re-guides. Working with me again is an investment that keeps giving back, friends, and I know that’s very forward of me, that’s very salesy of me but I’m telling you, this is a new world for me.
I have been keeping this little secret in my pocket for so many years and a lot of people who have worked with me keep saying,” Oh, my God.” I feel like the best-kept secret and I don’t want to be that secret anymore. Again, you do not have to work with me, if you feel called to work with an me on this podcast, though, great, I want to work with you. The way that we can start to explore working together is for you to take a really quick and fast assessment.
I’m going to ask you some general questions to see if we’re a good fit. If we are from there, we’ll set up a one on one free consult call. I’ll get to know you even more and if we still feel like we’re a good fit to work together, by the end of that call, we’ll put together a coaching plan in place that’s custom to your needs and to your budget. Go take that assessment if you feel called to do so. Just go to Lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y preston.com/assessment. Again, it’s lindsaypreston.com/assessment. All right, friends, this has been the most direct selling episode I have ever done in my entire life and I’ll probably ever do on the show. I appreciate you being here and listening to that. Hopefully, I gave you the insight you need to understanding what coaching is all about. You have a resource now to decide if working with me on this podcast is right for you.
Remember, it is okay if you’re just here for the podcast. I am so appreciative that you’re here for that. Now you have this great understanding too to know “Hey, I’m probably just here for the podcast.” That’s okay. I want you to know that awareness is everything so let’s get back to the good stuff. The next episode will go directly into helping you to grow with tips, strategies, and tools, these first three episodes of the show really just to give you an introduction to the podcast, who I am, and then what I do. Now, I will have new episodes releasing on the show the 1st and 15th of every month. Until then, my friends all my love and blessings, and remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be. Believe in yourself. You got this.
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