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FEMI’S COACHING STORY

Hear firsthand from my very FIRST client (from 6 years ago!), Femi Olasupo as she shares how coaching with me broke her cycle of getting paid less than she deserved AND kept her from ever dating a lying cheater again...and SO much more!

FEMI’S COACHING STORY

May 10, 2020 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

“It changed my entire self, inside and out. My inner dialogue changed, how I treated myself in hard times changed, how I showed up in my different relationships changed, what I chose to tolerate or not tolerate changed.” – Femi

Hear firsthand from my very FIRST client (from 6 years ago!), Femi Olasupo as she shares how coaching with me broke her cycle of getting paid less than she deserved AND kept her from ever dating a lying cheater again…and SO much more!

Femi describes in this interview exactly how coaching helped her as she said, “take a full 180” from sitting on the sidelines in her life to now become a courageous leader in ALL areas of her life.

LISTEN TO FEMI DESCRIBE:

  • What life was like before she started coaching with me
  • How coaching helped her change her dating patterns FOREVER
  • How she was able to make back her coaching investment in a DREAM JOB just a few months
  • How coaching helped her go from making far less than she was worth to making six figures now
  • What tools she learned from me that have changed her life the most
  • How coaching has allowed her to have better personal and family relationships
  • Why she came back to work with me a year and 1/2 ago and what she gained from coaching with me again

…and so much more!

Listen to this powerful interview via the link at the top of this page.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Apply to coach with me

Continue the conversation in my free online community

Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

Connect with Femi via email

Connect with Femi on LinkedIn

Full Transcript

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 44, Femi’s
Coaching Story.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fearfacing 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]

Hi friend, welcome to the show, so excited to have you here. Today continues a segment of
the show I’ve been doing for a few months now where I have clients come on, and they tell
you about their coaching journey with me. They tell you about the highs and the lows,
where they started, where they ended with coaching, what were some of the biggest wins
and growth and all that fun stuff. Today, Femi Olasupo is going to share her story with you.
Fun fact for you is Femi was actually my very first paying client. That was, goodness, I
think five years ago, which seems like yesterday.

When I met Femi, she was so smart, and yet she wasn’t being compensated nearly what
her intelligence was worth. That was something we really worked on as we coached
together during those few months. She ended up, at the end of coaching, leaving her lowpaying job, getting in essence her dream job, and growing from there. Now she is making
six figures, and she is rocking it. She also had a dating pattern that was not healthy at the
time. She was dating a lot of men who were cheating on her and just not being honest. We
had to really learn how she tapped into her intuition and knew her worth and her
boundaries and so much more we’re going to talk about on the show today.

Another thing I want to say here is Femi and I actually worked together again about a year
and a half ago when we went back through the coaching process because she had just
grown so much from the first time we worked together, that she then needed an up-level,
and she went all in on that second up-level. We really dug in deep to get her to this next
level in her life. She’ll talk about why she came back and her story briefly how the second
time through helped her grow. Without further ado, here is my interview with Femi.

Femi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing with all of us about your
coaching journey times two. We’ve done this sort of twice, which is so cool. Let’s go back
to, Femi, the first time around and when we started coaching together way back when in
the fall of 2014. What were you like then, or what can you remember you were like and
what your life was like?

Femi Olasupo: It was definitely a long time ago, not just in years, but it feels like I was a
completely different person back then. I almost can’t even believe that my life was the way
that it was and that I was the way that I was, that I thought the way that I did. Back then, I
had basically an administrative assistant job at The University of Texas. I was making 30
grand a year, but I had ambitions of doing bigger things for sure. I think the thing that led
me to coaching back then was because I had found myself in just a really not life-affirming
relationship, if you can even call it a relationship.

I was with someone who I wanted to be with and after seven months, found out that he
basically was acting like he was single the entire time, and I found myself in a place where
my self esteem had been lower than it’s ever been in my life, and I didn’t understand how I
could have gotten there. I didn’t understand what part I had in getting those results. I
remember just feeling like I need to do whatever I have to do to become a completely
different person so that this would be impossible, that it would happen to me again.

Lindsay: It’s bringing back my memory of when I first met you when we were in coach
training together. I remember seeing you and getting to know you over those few days and
thinking, “Man, this girl is such a rock star, and she has no idea.” Then when you and I
started developing sort of a personal relationship out of that, and I said, “Okay, Femi. I
have been certified in this other kind of process, and I’d love to coach you, and I won’t
charge you that much, and here’s what it looks like.” I remember you saying something
like, “Oh, I’m going to take a couple of days and think about it.”

I thought, “Oh, I hope she still signs up,” because I would love for her to realize just how
amazing she is. Then I remember during those few days when you were thinking, you
found out about that guy and how he was treating you behind the scenes, and you texted
me and said, “Yes, let’s do it.” I was like, “Oh yes. This is going to be awesome,” and then
the journey that unfolded after that was just so much fun. Can you tell us what happened
during that journey the first time around?

Femi: For sure. First I do want to say, because I know people are listening to this, and they
probably might not know what coaching is, and I know it’s always difficult to make the
decision to invest in coaching if you’re not sure what it is, but when opportunities come
along like that, I couldn’t be more grateful for that opportunity. Even though we were both
starting out at that time, and I said yes to that, which just made a snowball effect so that
later on, like I think you’ve already mentioned, I invested again in myself at much higher
rates with you because I know how amazing this work is and how needed it is for me.

Yes, I just want to say one, thank you and then two, it’s absolutely worth the investment.
The first time around, like you mentioned we were in a coaching certification course
together, and it was for a different kind of process. I didn’t really know anything about the
process that you were going to take me through, but I was really excited about it. For me, I
thought it was challenging in certain ways, only because I had never had any experience
with certain things, and it elicited a lot of self-awareness in me that I also, at the time,
didn’t have much experience in. It’s hard.

I think I was 27 at the time. It’s hard to be 27 years old and find out that you not only don’t
know anything about your own personal boundaries, you never established them, you were
never taught them, you don’t know how to enforce them. That was a really huge challenge
for me at the time. It was really scary honestly back then, because once you become aware
of that, you can’t unsee it. You can’t go back to like, “Oh, okay. Well then, I’m going to just
let people treat me however they want and not say anything.” It’s like now I’m fully aware
of my part in getting certain results, and I don’t want those results anymore.

I remember it was hard trying to stand up to my mom or my dad or men, and I would be
shaking sometimes and be like, “Oh, I have to say this on this phone call and just let them
know that I’m not okay with it and just do it.” There’s a lot of backlash, I think, that comes
with standing up for yourself, but if you can get through all of that, it’s like you open a
door to a world you didn’t even know existed where people respect you more. You respect
yourself more. You get more of what you want. I remember thinking, “Oh, it would be so
nice if people just thought a little bit longer about how they were going to talk to me or
treat me so that we could have a good relationship and that I would feel respected.”

I didn’t think that was possible. Then I started showing up with a stronger presence in my
life and seeing that it was possible, not without hardship, but definitely possible. It’s just
keep going through these new doors, opening to these new worlds, and you can never go
back to who you used to be. The process was different and challenging, but ultimately, so
incredibly worth it. I literally cannot imagine [chuckles] what my life would be like now if I
hadn’t have gone through that process and hadn’t really done the work, because I think
with coaching and with anything in life, you get out of it what you put into it. I was really
determined to push myself and do every single exercise.

If I felt like I didn’t get the amount of awareness that I needed, I would do the exercise
again. I even remember there was a time before we’re supposed to do this retreat, and I
was feeling probably extra, extra vulnerable. I’m having all these new feelings coming up. I
used to be one of those people who repressed anger a lot. I had frustration and anger
bubbling up a lot, and I just was like, “I don’t know where this is going to go.” I think I tried
to back out of it. [chuckles] You encouraged me to keep going, and I did.

Thank God, because I got over that hump, and it was just, I wouldn’t say smooth sailing
after that, but it was just like, “If I can get through that, then I can keep going. I can get
through anything else that comes up.” Yes, it changed my entire self, inside and out. My
inner dialogue changed, how I treated myself in hard times changed, how I showed up in
my different relationships changed, what I chose to tolerate or not tolerate changed. I
wanted that so much more for myself. Yes, that’s what the process was like.

Lindsay: I go back to that. When you talked about before you did your release retreat thing,
you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to do this.” I remember we had to go in with those 21-day
habits and get there. You really struggled with that because at the time, you were a big
people pleaser. You were so in everybody else’s needs before yours. I said, “Femi, you’ve
got to start putting your needs as a priority, and here’s how we’re going to get there.”
There was just this part of you that knew I was right, but a part of you that wanted to fight
it so hard.

Being a new coach at the time, I was like, “Oh my gosh, maybe I’m pushing her too hard. I
hope she doesn’t give up because it’s just going to get so much better.” I’m so glad that we
were able to both stick with it and get you through that. Yes, because that was just such a
turning point, and that’s a big turning point for a lot of people pleasers. It’s just finally
feeling the anger and feeling all the things, because you’re just so used to looking at
everybody else and saying, “Well, what do they need?” Because you’re so intuitive. You had
just been trained that way.

Yes. So then we get on the other side of doing all the block work and then we figure out
who Femi is, and we put together all the pieces of you, I like to say, like your strengths and
your purpose and your passions and all that fun stuff. Do you remember what your big
takeaways from that work was?

Femi: Yes. It’s along the lines of being a reformed people pleaser. Like one of my high
strengths is empathy. I am naturally sensitive to the needs of others, picking up on their
energies and stuff and just wanting everyone around me to be okay. One of the biggest
mindset shifts that I had then, and that I still always remind myself of is, “It’s okay to have
empathy for other people, but if I can’t include myself in that empathy, then something’s
wrong. Something’s out of balance.” Now, as a rule for myself, it’s like I will only go so far
in practicing empathy for other people or doing things for other people.

I will only do so much if it doesn’t like deplete my resources, my energy and stuff. If I’m
not taking care of first, then I’m not going to be able to take care of other people as much
as I need or as much as I’d like to, or as well as I’d like to. So it’s just I need to include
myself in the people pleasing, which is not something that I ever did before. I didn’t even
have the awareness that that was an issue. Now that I do, it’s like, “Okay, I feel completely
empowered to take a step back sometimes and just do what I need to do to feel my best,
to fill up my energy, to just fill my cup and before I go and help other people out.
Lindsay: Yes. That doesn’t mean your productivity has gone down. If anything, your
productivity has gone up, would you agree?

Femi: 100%. [laughs]

Lindsay: Because you’re not weighed down by crap anymore, and two, you’ve got so much
confidence from that, that it just turned into you had more opportunities that were in
alignment with you and things of that sort.

Femi: Yes, I learned how to say no, is the main thing here. It’s like, I learned not only to say
no, but to interject and ask for what I need also. That was something I absolutely could not
do. What’s really funny too is I spend a lot of time with my mom now. I help her out a lot,
but the only reason why it works is because I feel 100% okay saying, “Look, these are the
rules, and either you follow them, or you don’t follow them,” which is something I would
never have been able to do, or like, “Hey, look, this is what I need right now. Can you
respect that?” And we can go from there.

I’m much more willing to enter into a potentially conflictive conversation to assert my
needs or assert my wants or assert my boundaries. I’m much more in tune with when
someone else, even if they love me, is still– They can’t help themselves sometimes, but
they might still try to push my boundaries to see what they can get away with. I am much
more willing to not just sit there and take it or be quiet about it, or just let them have it,
and I’ll go do something else to get what I need. It’s like, “No, I have a line in the sand, and
you have to respect this, or this isn’t going to work,” and it’s like, “You choose.” That’s not
something I would have been able to do, however many years–

Lindsay: It’s not like you’re doing it in a mean way.

Femi: Absolutely not.

Lindsay: You’re just doing it in a way that you’re honoring yourself. I think that’s just
natural human behavior, is we all try and push people to see how far they’ll go and see
how they’ll respond. There are a few people out there who do either consciously or
unconsciously really want to take advantage of others. I think for you, Femi, your childhood
wasn’t the best. You being able to have that kind of relationship with your mom now
where you do help her out a lot. You have a lot of compassion and patience and strength
with her. That’s huge. You blow me away sometimes of just like, “Wow, I can’t believe how
incredibly powerful yet loving you are now.”

Femi: Yes. I wouldn’t have been able to do this. I feel like through all the things that I’ve
been through with both my parents honestly– and now it’s crazy because I have a very
healed relationship with my mom and with my dad, and I would not be able to be here had
I not gone through the coaching process, not found my voice and found this inner strength
that’s like, “Hey, I deserve respect.” I have to be the advocate. I have to take responsibility
for getting this respect or getting the treatment that I want and teaching all people how to
treat me, including the people in my family, which sometimes can be a hell of a lot harder
than random stranger on the street or something.

There was a lot of hard times with a lot of hard pushback over the years, but we got
through it. I have to say that is one of the things that I’m most proud of in my– If I work to
be an old woman looking back on my life is that I didn’t just throw these relationships
away that sucked, and I’m not saying– For different people, it might be that you do need
to have a certain amount of distance, but instead, I feel like I found the courage through
this process to– I guess it’s like courage and vulnerability to have some really tough
conversations over the years, to express things that I always held back, and to say like,
“Hey, I want us to have a great relationship. I won’t look like this. Would you be open to
that?”

If you are open to that and, “This is what I need from you.” You have one conversation like
that, and they might agree. There might be emotions involved. Then you have to have a
little bit more compassion because they’re not going through that same process as you are.
They’re older than you maybe, and they’ve had certain parts in their life that they haven’t
healed. Being able to heal my own hurts, it’s like I can have more compassion for that and
realize that they might not have the skills to engage in the kind of relationship that I want.

Since I’m taking more responsibility for my happiness and the way that I want to be
treated, it’s almost like I learned to lead through through doing this, through engaging in
those conversations, through being courageous, through being vulnerable, I’ve been able
to lead by example and influence the energy of the relationship and the dynamic between
me and both of my parents have changed like a full 180 since the first time we started
coaching. Yes, I think it’s one of the things that I’m most grateful for, is that it might not be
the perfect relationship, but it works now, and it’s one that is mutually respectful more
than it’s ever been before.

Lindsay: You know what I think is so interesting about the coaching process, and I’ll see if
you agree, Femi, but I know for me and what I’ve noticed in clients is that because you
have learned to hold the space for yourself and to process your own feelings, you can even
most times unintentionally do that for other people. Even if it’s showing a loving boundary
of, “Hey, this is what I’m not going to take anymore.” It opens up for people of, “Wow.
Maybe there’s some healing I need to do there.” I see so many people after this process
become healers in the world of, like you said, showing that compassion and that courage
and showing people what’s possible with that and so then it’s just this ripple effect. Would
you agree, Femi?

Femi: 100%. It’s so interesting because when you are willing to have conversations on a
deeper level with people, you find that people open up to you way more than they ever
did. Again, that’s one of the things I noticed with my parents over there. It’s just like, you
go 20 something years, and they barely tell you anything about their life. Suddenly, each of
them have been telling me just little tidbits of things that happened to them in their
childhood, which for me just knock me down sometimes because I’m like, “Oh my God,
that’s a lot of trauma. That’s a lot of toxic things that you had to go through.”

The person I am now feels so much for the child that my parents were when they had to
go through those things. I feel me being able to hold space for myself and then opening up
space for them too, there is healing that takes place because then they feel safe enough to
open up about their challenges or be vulnerable about something that they might be
facing that they don’t have the answers for. Then you get to relate to them not as authority
figure and child, but you relate to them as human to human or soul to soul. I don’t know. It
could be pretty powerful.

Lindsay: Yes. I totally agree. What’s so funny is that before, when you were a people
pleaser without really even knowing it, is that you think that by pleasing other people,
you’re helping them, and you’re healing them, and you’re doing all this great in the world.
The reality is, is you’re not really helping them that much. They’re taking advantage of you
and this really surface level stuff, and you’re really harming yourself in the process,
whereas now you don’t really people please, but instead you show up in a way where you
can give them so much more than you ever could.
Femi: I don’t think you can help or hold space or lead or heal without honesty. I don’t think
you can be honest, truly honest in relationships, if you haven’t developed the skill of
honesty with yourself. I think through coaching, becoming aware of certain things that I
wasn’t able to see before and even just– I’ve kept my journaling, and I actually do the
dialoguing journaling. I’ve continued to do that since coaching. That has helped me
develop that skill of honesty with myself. Sometimes I’ll have a thought, and I’ll just be
like, “Wait, is that really true?”
Then I have to go through and be like, “No, here’s what’s really, really, really super honest
with me.” I think that’s helped me just show up way more for myself and then be able to
show up for other people and be willing to risk saying like, “Hey, I didn’t like that,” or, “Hey,
do you really think that’s true about yourself even?” I noticed that with my mom too. I
remember one time we went on a trip together, and I guess she wasn’t happy with the way
that she was looking, and she just kept looking in the mirror and just saying mean things
to herself.


If I were a people pleaser, I would just let it go or be like, “No, you’re fine,” and now I’m
like, “No, shut it down. Don’t talk to yourself like that. Talk to yourself in a good way,” or
I’ll ask her about, “Really, how do you feel about yourself? Is there something that you
want to change?” Even now, she had been living with me for the past few months, and it’s
like, “Hey, if you really want to change this, I’m going to work out with a trainer. Do you
want to come?”

Just seeing her feel better about herself through our relationship and doing good things
for herself or even now, she’ll be much more willing to treat herself more kindly or make
sure she’s taking care of herself a little bit more just through me being willing to say, “Hey,
we don’t do that. If you’re going to be around me, we take care of ourselves. We treat
ourselves with kindness. We talk to ourselves.” Well, I want to say it’s almost like I’m
parenting her, and it might be that way, but maybe she needed that.

Lindsay: Yes. I can completely relate with my own parents. It’s the same thing. When you
grow up in that environment where you weren’t parented well, and I don’t say that as like
your parents are bad, but there were just some things that were lacking, then it turns
around and all of a sudden you realize, ‘Hey, my parents are just these unfilled children
too,” and because you’ve done the healing, then it inspires them to change the script,
which is so cool for me. So awesome. We’ve talked a lot about internal stuff that’s
changed, but let’s talk about the external stuff that changed the first time around,
especially with your job, because that was one of the big pain points and one of the big
goals.

I remember when we worked together was, “I hate my job. I don’t make enough. I want to
change it.” At the time, you and I were just getting into the online world, and there were
different people that we followed that we really admired. Can you tell us that story of how
your job changed in those months?

Femi: Yes, so I always felt like I was a very ambitious person. I love to learn. I love to just
figure out how much I can do and keep doing it. I did that in the job that I had, but I just
felt like I had outgrown it, and there was so much more for me, and I just didn’t have any
clue how that was going to happen. I did pursue life coaching, and I was doing that a little
bit on the side, but quickly realizing, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know anything about real
business or how to do this,” and so you know I followed Melanie Duncan at the time, and I
thought, “Oh my gosh, she and her business look amazing. It’d be so cool to just be around
that.”

Crazy coincidence, I was just randomly looking online, and they were hiring. I remember I
applied to three [laughs] of the jobs there, whether I was qualified or not, because I was
just like, “I want this to happen.” Her process was very long. It was fill out these openended questions. Then you do a project. Then you get invited to do another project, and if
you pass that project, then you get invited to the interview, but I did it. I remember it was
around this time actually, because it was Good Friday before Easter. I didn’t have any of
the technology to make this happen.

I had snuck back into my job, stayed there from 10:00 PM to 5:00 AM doing this project
and sent it feeling so defeated like I was never going to get a call back, but she called me
back, and we did the interview. Through that whole process, I got hired there, and I ended
up actually occupying two of the three positions that I had applied for. That job, they’ve
evolved, and they have another company which I work in now as well. Also through all of
that and through just being in a different environment that’s more in line with who I am, I
was able to develop different skills, develop more confidence, be bolder and go after
different things.

In addition to that, I also work from time to time with other companies as well. My
financial situation it’s almost unreal to me sometimes because I remember who I was back
when we started coaching in a job that I hated, making only 30 grand a year, and now I
make upwards of six figures. I’m just like every time I journal, which is pretty much every
day, I’m always like, “I’m so grateful for my job. I’m so grateful for my income. I’m so
grateful for my finances. I’m so grateful for me taking a chance on me back then, and you
in this process and me going through it and changing all the things I needed to change to
have the results that I have now.”

Lindsay: You just did the work for me. You mentioned it earlier, but like you said, some
people can even invest and just half do it. You went all in, and so much in that even after
we’ve finished coaching the first time, we took a couple of years off. We keep in contact. I
don’t remember us doing any maintenance sessions that I can think of, but then I do–
Obviously, you came back, and I believe it was fall 2018. You said, “Lindsay, I’ve hit another
round of blocks. I’m not able to pull myself through it. Let’s do another round.” Tell us
what Femi was like then.

Femi: I think that’s another great reason why coaching is amazing, is because you build the
muscle of self-awareness and continue to do the work. You will always be aware if you
have loss. Actually, before I contacted you, I think, yes, the fall of 2018. It was a year and a
half before that that I had had some things happen. I think a couple of things with the
family, but of course a guy again, but yes, I had this thing not work out with a guy, and I
just had a lot of grieving that was going on, and I did the work that I normally do, but I was
noticing that it was only getting me so far past the hump, not completely through the
hump.

I am committed to doing whatever I have to do to not let these things weigh me down, not
live in a limiting space, but to process all the things that I need to process all the way
through so that I can cut those limits and really and truly stand and live in my true self. I
was just like, “Oh, things aren’t working.” You notice that things aren’t working because
you’re a little bit more frustrated every day. You have more heavy energy that you can’t get
through. If you ever having issues with gratitude, which I love gratitude, and I’m very
committed to it.

If I’m having issues, I’m like, “Whoa, there’s really something going on.” I was like, “I must
have things in my blind spots, and I need help, and I trust you. We’ve been through this
process before,” and I was like, “I really wonder what it would be like to go through it
again to see what the limiting beliefs are so that I can reverse them and let go of those.” I
contacted you and me, we did it. It’s so funny because, at least for me, you can tell me if
it’s different for you. For me, it was a different kind of experience because the things that
were hard the last time, I felt like I purposely pushed myself harder on those. When we are
extracting the limiting beliefs, I remember I had some hard ones. Some pretty–

Lindsay: That’s a call I’ll never forget Femi because you went so deep on that one. I just
remember feeling this feeling, which I do on a lot of those calls, but yours was the heaviest
I’d ever felt of, “Wow, this is big.” It was a spiritual connection of, “She is doing some
massive healing right now,” and I just felt so honored to be a part of it. It was so cool.

Femi: Yes. I feel like that’s one thing I would say is, you go through a coaching process, you
really do become a new person, but everyone else is expecting you to be the same person.
The next phase in life it’s friction. It’s like, “I have so much happiness and stuff that I want
to live by, but there’s a lot of pushback on that.” With that, you can’t help but acquire or
accumulate some sadness and stuff. There’s a lot of stuff that I had been holding onto, I
guess, for a couple of years that I needed to get through. I was determined to, one, be as
vulnerable with you as possible.

I was like, “I’m just going to go for it.” Two, I wanted to just get it all out because I
remember we were halfway through, and the session was up, and I was like, “No, just
charge me for another one. We’re going through this. I’m not going to do this again,”
because I was willing to go that deep and be that open and exposed.

Lindsay: Then from there it was, you had to get all of that out for us to start to heal it, and
man, that was fun, isn’t it? To heal all that junk.

Femi: It really was. The second time around, I would say it wasn’t as novel as the first time,
but it was almost like it solidified a lot of true self things really, really well. For example,
these are like small daily things that I’ve noticed recently that came out of the second time
around doing this. It was like, sometimes you don’t even notice when you have thinking
habits. Something will happen, it won’t go the same way. In addition to being a pleaser, I
used to be a big, big doubter of myself as well. There will be things that don’t work in my
favor that happened now, and inside my head, I will literally hear a voice like, “Oh, well
maybe you weren’t this enough, or maybe I wasn’t good enough here or that.”

[laughs] It makes me laugh sometimes because then another voice will be like, “Oh no, is
that really true?” I was good enough. I studied, I did this. I showed up as best as I can, and
that’s all I can do. If they aren’t able to see that this is the right fit or if it just isn’t in align
with what I am doing, then fine. It’s like where before my shifts up, when I got stuck in bad
thinking, and I really needed to do the work to shift out of it, it was very mechanical, and
now it’s more automatic. I’ll have a bad thought, and I’ll be stuck in a limiting belief and
almost like clockwork.

It’s like two seconds later. It’s like, “No, that’s not true. Actually, I know I showed up well, I
know I had the best intentions. I know I did my best, and that’s all I can do. If it wasn’t
good enough, this just isn’t for me, or it’s not in alignment for me, or maybe I’m being
saved from something, and I just need to start saying thank you, because if it’s not this, it’s
going to be something better.” It’s just like it automatically shifts up to something way
more positive and affirming of who I am, and then it’s just an avalanche of gratitude for
how I fit instead of, “What’s wrong with me?”

Lindsay: Yes. Oh my gosh. You encompass the process so well Femi here. This is how I take
it, is that we all have to go through this coaching work or whatever kind of work to go in
and heal the past stuff, so that we can show up in the present the way we want to show
up, but we still have a human brain, and we still have to learn how to manage it. Granted,
it’s a lot easier to manage after we heal the past stuff, but you have to be able to be aware
enough to say, “That’s just a thought. I can change that thought. Here I go,” and do it in a
way where it is somewhat seamless because otherwise it can snowball.

Then all of a sudden you’re like, “Man, I feel like crap How did this happen?” Whereas now
you’re like, “Okay, it started here, and here’s how I change it.” Then that’s why you’re able
to be so productive and do all the things you’re able to do over and over again, because
you’re just not weighed down anymore. When you are, you have the tools to pull yourself
out. It’s amazing.

Femi: Exactly. I think a misconception about the coaching process, and even I probably had
some of this too. I think we all tend to think like this, but is that once you get healed, you
are healed, and you don’t have to do any more work, and you’re just going to be happy and
see unicorns and rainbows all the time. It’s like, that’s not real life. Real life is really
amazing too, because it’s like, “Okay, I still feel sadness. I still feel frustration. I still feel
anger or doubt in myself or whatnot,” but the big change is that I don’t have to stay there. I
have the tools to get out of it.

That doesn’t have to rule my life. If I feel sad, I might actually just allow myself to feel sad
instead of beating myself up about it. Then if I’m still feeling sad though, I have the tools
to examine it, go into it, figure out what I need to see, what I need to take, if I need to take
action and then go forward and move out of it. I think before you do any kind of coaching,
you don’t understand how not on your own side you are, how you are your own worst
enemy. I think you even have something. It’s like your frenemy. You really, really are.

Then if you really put in the work and the time, it’s so amazing because it becomes
automatic. Literally when I read my journals now, it’s like I have the best friend ever, and
it’s me. It’s just like the way my inner dialogue just works automatically is so much kinder,
and it’s so much affirming of who I am and supportive of who I am, and it’s like, “Oh yes,
we got knocked down, but I’m going to help you back up. When you get back up, you’re
going to see how amazing you are, and we’re going to keep going, and we’re going to keep
trying.” It’s like I have a little cheerleader [chuckles] by my side all the time.

Lindsay: You have your own inner coach. Really. Yes. I love it.

Femi: You’ve grown a big why. One thing that, I think we’ve done this maybe in one of your
challenges, is not exactly part of the core process, but I always have a little picture of me
as a little kid [chuckles] nearby, and that helps me get out of when I really fall into a funk.

I can express all the feelings, but then I have that picture, and I write to me as a little kid
because it’s like, “I want to treat myself so well for you.” Like, “You weren’t treated well.
You didn’t get certain things that you needed, but I am in charge now, and I get to give you
everything that you could have ever hoped for. I’m not going to accept this from that
person. I’m going to be courageous and ask for what I want here, because I want to give
you the world because you deserve it.”

It helps me, I don’t know, just show up for myself that much more if I’m doing it for my
inner child, because it’s who it really is for.

Lindsay: I completely relate to that, too. It is. Oh, Femi. So much goodness from this
interview today. Two quick questions for you as you wrap it up. First one, someone’s on the
fence, they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know if coaching is right for me. My life is pretty good,” or,
“You know, I’m just really scared to make the investment,” what would you say to them?

Femi: It sounds cliché, but it’s like [laughs] all the things you want are on the other side of
your comfort zone. If you’re listening to this, if you are in Lindsay’s realm at all, I bet you
it’s not all unicorns and rainbows? Do you want a pretty good life, or do you want an
amazing life? You have to set aside some of that doubt and skepticism and say, “You know,
maybe I’m here for a reason, and maybe there are things that I don’t know about myself.

Maybe I could stand to learn something that could just make life that much easier, or that
much more amazing.” So I would say go for it. If you’re even thinking about it at all, go for
it. What do you have to lose to 10x your happiness, 10x your support for yourself?

Lindsay: It just reminds me of when I was trying to get you to do this process with me, and
I had already gone through it, and I was like, “Oh, she just doesn’t know how great life can
be.” I really wanted to show you that, and that’s why I feel with people who haven’t started
to work with me. It’s like, they just don’t know, and I’m so glad you said that. I think we’re
skeptical. We hear a lot of crap all day long, of, “Oh, you know, XYZ will change you.” For
me, and I think you would agree with this too Femi, for you, it’s like, this was it. “This was
the defining moment for me. This process is what changed the entire game.”

Femi: Absolutely, and I would also say this, I think sometimes coaching can get a bad rap
because it sounds like, “Oh, we’re just going to be positive today,” or, “Just love yourself.” I
would almost say this is like a much more rooted, grounded. It’s not positive and “be on
your own side” for nothing. You do a lot of guttural decluttering of your spirit, and you do a
lot of work that is way more eye-opening than I would have imagined it could be or any
process could be. If you really are willing to give your all in this, you’re going to come out
of the other side just, like I said, a completely new person. I don’t even think the same way
that I used to.

Lindsay: Yes, but yet, it’s like a coming home feeling. It’s like, “Ah, it’s Femi,” or, “Ah, it’s

Lindsay,” you know?

Femi: Yes, you’ve unlearned all the things that were covering up who you truly are.

Lindsay: Yes, for sure, because I think that scares people. They think, “Oh, I’m going to
change,” but, no, you just become more of who you were meant to be. Like you said, you
clear out the clutter.

Femi: Exactly.

Lindsay: Femi, thank you again so much. Do you want people to reach out to you, and if so,
where can they find you?

Femi: You can always write me an email. If Lindsay wants to post my personal email, I
don’t even mind. I’m also on LinkedIn, she can put my– you can put my name up on there,
because I know it’s hard to spell. I don’t currently have any public websites and stuff, and
for the time being, I think that’s cool. LinkedIn would be a great place or my email, which
is [email protected].

Lindsay: I’ll put both in the show notes. See, Femi, just coming on to share her story. She
doesn’t even want a follow or anything, which is so awesome. Thank you again, Femi.

Femi: [laughs] Yes, thank you for having me.

[music]

Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed
it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on
social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on
how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish
your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.

In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single
step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is
to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get
started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can
be, so believe in yourself. You got this.

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Hi! I'm Lindsay

Hi! I’m Lindsay Elizabeth Preston. I’m a certified & trauma-informed life & leadership coach who has spent the last decade helping successful women create lives that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside by using my neuroscience-backed coaching process called, Awakened Woman.


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