Hey there, welcome to the Act of Coaching. I'm your host, Phil Askew. And in each episode, I sit down with certified coaches from ACT Leadership. Together, we explore their unique journeys into the coaching world. and how they use their skills to make a real difference, both in their work and in their everyday lives. Whether you're a coach or simply coach curious, you're going to love this podcast. Enjoy the show.
So, Paige, thank you so much for being here. It's a real pleasure to have you on the Active Coaching. And tradition dictates that I ask you the question, who is it you get a sense that you're in service of? and what is it that you help them with yes i love this question so certainly an ongoing conversation that i have with myself but i would say that
I am actually a former educator and an educator leader, and I really have specialized in educational equity, neurodiversity and disability justice. And so. I'd say that the folks that I really help fall into two camps. And the first is really aligned with my background. So I work with educational entities, teachers, teacher leaders.
Folks who are seeking development and support to really do right by neurodiverse kids. And that's definitely a big bucket of my work. And then the other group of folks that I work with can be harder to pin down. I really think of them as people who are in the liminal space. And the liminal space, the way that I define it, is really that painful but beautiful moment of possibility where...
You're caught between past that's clearly over and this future that hasn't started yet. And so often the folks that I am working with who are in this space are at a transition, maybe in their career. or in their life. So they're transitioning to a new career or they're new moms or they're entering menopause. And I think in both cases, I really like to help these people.
find the next right path forward. And that's actually where my consulting business got its name. So my consulting business is called Luminal Development, and that is a portmanteau of the words liminal and luminous, which is the idea of what could be. next beautiful yeah beautiful it's really nice isn't it the it's interesting because what i hear when you say that is that it opens up a lot of potential and possibility and i think once you describe it
as you've just done so eloquently, it feels like it really makes sense as to the practical applications of coaching. As in, we know those liminal spaces, don't we? We know those pauses between what once was and what we were. and what we might yet to be, if that's English, what we could be potentially. And I think there's this big thing around, oftentimes there can be a lot of angst around, what is this transition and where do I go next? And it can feel really difficult to know.
whether we take the leap of faith or not. Yeah. And I think framing it as a moment of opportunity instead of one that is nothing but scary can be really powerful for folks. So stepping into... the beauty of what could be and what's next rather than looking at it as a scary unknown i think that is why i really like that space is allowing folks to do that reframe how do you get a sense that your people are
struggling before they start working with you what kind of side effects they hit with yeah i think there's a big sense of loss These folks tend to know that something is over. Something has changed. And when you're going through that moment, feel that deep loss. And that can bring up a lot of things. In addition to sadness and pain, it also can. bring up feelings of, am I good enough? Am I able to meet this moment? Am I ready to do what's next? And so there's also these.
the self-doubt and the fear that can creep in when you're in between spaces and so i find that folks come in feeling those things pretty dramatically and they don't feel good nobody wants to be in that space they want to come into the light of what is next and it can be really hard to do by yourself yeah especially because you've never done it before yeah and it's a whole new chapter isn't it and i guess it's like asking someone to stand on the
top of a cliff and say leap into the great unknown you'll be fine but yeah you'll be fine we've got it probably there's the parachute we don't know yeah exactly like we've never used this particular parachute at this particular juncture before but trust me you'll be fine and
Yeah. And I think that's where coaching really comes into its own, isn't it? Where you have this thinking partner and ally, trusted ally that's on your side, that's really got your back as you're starting to figure out, probably, yeah, figuring out, first of all, what is right. for the next chapter and then how to go about achieving it, how to go about heading towards it. Yes. Would you say that this has been your journey too? Oftentimes when we choose a niche, judging by your face, maybe yes.
Oftentimes. 100% Phil. Absolutely. I have been very fortunate to work with coaches myself at various junctures in my life. And the first time I had a coach was when I had moved into a. much more senior leadership position and I had more folks working under me. And my amazing manager at the time said, I think that you need additional coaching and support here that can take you further than I can. And so I was.
lucky enough to work with an executive coach. And this was almost 10 years ago. So that wasn't necessarily something that was a lot of people were doing. It was a new concept for me. I had the question, is this a therapist? Is this a work therapist? What's happening? But I was fortunate enough to work with her in this moment of transition for myself, moving from an individual contributor to a leader and having.
Someone to work through my own self-limiting beliefs with my own doubts and my own challenges was really powerful. And so that was very much an experience I had and got me interested in coaching. What if I could be this someone else? And then. When I became a new mom and transitioned from being very focused on work, being my identity, and then suddenly having this whole new identity and trying to marry those, I worked with a coach again.
And I really think that contributed to me feeling like I could do both things. And I would love to provide that and do I hope provide that for clients now. So it's really fascinating how people come across coaching.
whether it's being a practice client for someone who's training or whether it's someone gets given a coach at work or whether we actively choose it ourselves. Ten years ago, coaching was normalizing. It was coming into the equation around... people's awareness as a non-snake oil offering but i wonder and it sounds like you had to be open-minded to actually give it a shot because we ask all the right questions don't we is it therapy and i love how you use that phrase is it work therapy
I've never heard that before, but these are the things that go through our minds, isn't it? When we're thinking about qualifying this person as, is this someone who can help me? Is this genuine? Where does this sit on the axes of help? Right. And what is their value add?
to me in this moment and is it different than all the other folks that i have in my court yeah how is this different from mentoring how is this in consulting yeah i always think it's really important when we're speaking to our clients or potential clients to really define the differences between that and maybe there's a podcast in there at some point but there is a very distinct difference between that and i love what you were saying like where first of all you had that first coach
Prior to that point, you probably had no taste of it or experience of it. But then afterwards, you had the full immersion and you're like, absolutely, I know the benefits of what a coach is or working with a coach is. And then you subsequently went off and got another coach. Because you actually had the felt experience of what it was like. Yeah. And I have one now. I think that I'm also in a transitional state now. And I think that having someone in your corner to help you, you know.
define your own greatness and define your own measures of success and really work on those all the voices that tell you can't do it or that it's too hard that it'd be easier not to it's profound it really is and so having a coach for at these various stages of my life has made it for me such an obvious next step to want to give that and to want to do that work as well it's always the way isn't it i think
Once we've experienced it, it's like our worldview shifts. Oftentimes we do the training and we think, I'm just picking up some fantastic tools to do on others. And then what happens is... The unwritten disclaimer that I always talk about is the fact that we have to do our growing, we have to do our changing and metamorphosis into something completely different. And then that worldview changes permanently, I think. And we become...
We've done the Kool-Aid in the best way possible. Absolutely. I don't think that I would be half the coach that I am without having the experiences with coaches that I've had in the past. And even with my current coach, really.
it's just a very profound experience to be a coach who is being coached. Yeah. It's really wonderful. And it builds my own skill and it builds my own awareness. And I have found it to be really transformative. It's funny. Sometimes people who haven't experienced coaching before. or haven't explored it further than just the term and heard about people here and there i think have this perception that coach is fixed like we've got it all made up and done and dusted we're we're good now
Which can provoke a couple of different responses. One is, what do you know about my life? Like you're this age, you haven't lived what I've lived. And the other thing is, of course, kind of like, well. I don't want to be told answers. I want to figure things out myself. And of course, coaching isn't that. It's very different from being told what to do. Yes. And it's when I experienced my first coach.
That was one of the biggest shifts for me to have her. I remember saying, what should I do? And she said, I don't know. Can't tell you. And just sitting with that. What is, why are you here then? What are we going to do? But that was, it really, it was a moment of just shifting everything I thought that I knew about coaching and has consistently been.
To me, just such a relief to not have to know all the answers. That's not your job as a coach. Your job as a coach is to be with people and ask the questions and be genuinely curious and help them. get to what's next and and you don't have to know what that is and that's i think that's actually a really huge gift to not have that yeah totally it's very different from school isn't it i think there's an unlearning that needs to happen where
At school, I don't know about you, but that was very much the case. Who can recall the information? Who puts their hand up first? Who's got the answer? Because they're the ones that were either called like teacher's pet or those were the ones who shined. in the class. And it's actually when you're a coach is the opposite. It's the opposite. Like you want to pull back on that muscle. It's like we built the muscle about being fast with the answers.
Very well, thank you very much. But actually, what we want to build a muscle of is the other side, and that is to listen incredibly well. Sometimes to the point where it feels, I should say something, but no, even more space is what's needed. Yeah. And we, that idea, that teacher's pet, that having the answers, we see that reflected in traditional management technique, right? The manager has the answer. It's a very top-down approach to thinking about how we support and develop people.
And so having an executive coach when I was a manager as a leader, it really shifted the way that I approached that. It was a great weight off to. realized that I didn't have to have all the answers. And in fact, we would get further faster by allowing the fullness of others' answers and others' ideas to come to the surface.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I had a coach mentor say to me once, get out of the way and let the coaching come through you. Because she was listening to a supervision session of mine. And I think I was trying to be a good coach. And I knew that it was going to be for a supervision session.
So I was pulling out all the tricks and she was like, you're making it hard work. What would it be like if you said half that you're saying here, just got out of the way and let the coaching come through you? And I did from that point on really. And I just thought, why am I speaking? Why am I doing this? It wasn't directive, but it was more like I was filling space because I felt like I should, or I felt like that's the way to add value early on in my coaching days.
Yeah, it was such an interesting transition or transformation. So with your training, so you trained with ACT Leadership, which is obviously what this podcast is all about, ACT Leadership faculty and ACT Leadership alumni. I'm wondering how you went about your decision process for deciding on a certified course. Yeah, so I knew that I wanted to go with the certified.
a program that would allow me to be certified through the International Coaching Federation. And that was important to me because you earlier used the term snake oil. And I really, I didn't want to have a credential. that didn't mean anything or that didn't carry weight. I wanted my training to be legitimate and I wanted my training to be good.
And I knew that there would be boundaries in place around a certified program. And as I was looking for different programs, I actually had a colleague who had gone through the ACT program. And she spoke. so incredibly highly of the faculty and the connection around the caliber of other students in the course. She said people are just so smart and driven and passionate.
I wanted to be a part of that. And she really encouraged me actually to do the hybrid courses. So I was very much, let's do virtual. That will be easiest. I'm very busy. And she really pushed me to do some in person. And I was so glad that I did because being in community with folks for me in that moment of my life was very transformative. And it allowed me to, I think, really give myself into the training in a way that was really powerful.
So for me, it was that. It was very much wanting that community, wanting a really strong training. And I think the third thing that I was really drawn to was ACT has a really strong alumni program. And I wanted to, I didn't want to just take the courses and be done. I really wanted there to be continuing community and continuing development and continuing learning. And I felt like ACT was going to provide.
And that has absolutely been the case. I have been just so incredibly happy with the alumni. Just the groups that we have, the additional training that's provided, the additional opportunities. as I was in your course and that was really transformative. So I just, there were a lot of things that went into that decision and it ultimately wasn't a super hard one. Yeah, I love that. It's so important, isn't it? To do the research and to ask.
colleagues, ask people who've done training, rather than just to trust the websites. Because there's just so many coach training schools out there now. And because it's unregulated by way of professional bodies, professional standards. You have the ICF, which I think is an incredibly important association, International Coach Federation, where you can go and search for coach training courses. And I think that should be the first port of call for people looking to find a certified course.
Everybody claims to be a life coach or a business coach, and actually all they've done is change their business card. So you have to be very mindful. So make sure you read those websites and make sure that you ask good folk who you trust who've done the training as well. Yeah. Exactly. And ask any ACT alumni and they'll go on about it forever because. It's really, it's just this amazing group. It's such a privilege to be part of.
this group of folks and it was exactly what i wanted the continuing development the continuing learning because they don't think we're ever done i don't believe you can ever reach peak coaching this is it and i'm so great at this and i know how to do it perfectly
For me, I know that will never be the case, which I think is great because that means I get to keep learning. And I really do find that to be true at Act, which is really phenomenal. So you chose this. So we do it in three different ways. We do a hybrid version of the course. A hybrid is basically.
half virtual, half face-to-face. And then we do an all face-to-face and we do an all virtual. So we like to think like we provide the different options for different people's lives, circumstances. And you said you chose hybrid, which is fascinating that's great i think that's the one i would have chosen as well had i been near rhode island which is where the face-to-face component is yeah how did you find it like how did you find mixing the two together what was that experience like
I really, I did prefer personally in person. And the reason for that is that when we were done, we weren't done. So you become so close with this group of people so quickly because you're engaging in such powerful work. That when we were done with our sessions, we would go out, we would keep talking, we would keep practicing. It was a full experience. The first time I went, I'd actually made plans with friends both nights of the training. And the third time I said, nope.
This is all I'm doing. This is what I'm here for. But I think having that in-person experience first allowed the virtual session to feel really intimate and really close. And I enjoyed that. And I also, it was nice not to have to travel all of the times, right? And to be able to, at the end of the day, go be a mom, go be a wife, go be a person that wasn't doing this work. So I really did appreciate.
the opportunity to do both and i'm glad i did it that way i think that's the that's the real advantage of doing both is because as professional coaches generally will do both will sometimes choose face-to-face with clients if they happen to be available and we can meet them and I love that and there's a very different experience to doing a virtual and then sometimes we'll work with people who we never actually meet face-to-face but we do it over zoom or
Google Meet and have an incredibly intimate experience as well. So I think if you're doing the virtual, I think that preps us to be really well-versed in what it's like to be an actual practicing coach in the real world. That's a really interesting point. I think that's exactly right. Because when you're going through ACT, you get so much practice coaching. And when you are coaching someone in real time, it is very different than when you're coaching them.
over Zoom. And there's also that element of being able to see yourself, which can throw you because you really want to be focusing on your client. And so it's a new way of, oh, I'm over here now as well. I'm part of this in a way that is not. the case when you're in person and so it was really great to get that experience and get practice for sure that's a fascinating thing i've not even thought about that's true because i can see myself here being recorded with you i'm not looking at me but
I was saying this to someone the other day, actually, when we're on video with clients sometimes or with colleagues, I think sometimes that we have this strange expectation that we should be looking at them all the time. But we wouldn't do that in everyday life. It would be weird if you sat there looking at them.
genuinely creepy if you did that you're right yeah i remember when i first trained to be a coach like 2008 all we used was skype audio so it was just audio and there was something beautiful in that in the sense for the client they didn't feel like they had to manage what was going on behind them to look good to get on camera we would just jump on the call
And then we would just have the audio and I would do the same. And also equally, we could wander around the room. We could be wherever we want. We could lay down. We could do all sorts of different things. So I suppose that's what I love about this sort of modality of coaching is the sheer range. that we can step into and still provide an incredibly impactful exchange yeah yes but you have to call in those different skills because when you think about doing just audio
You have to listen, really. You always have to listen, but you really have to listen for those changes in inflection, those pauses, those moments where when you're watching someone, you can see so much of it. And so you really have to call on different skills. And this is why I love coaching. It's not easy. Yeah. You really have to tap into different sets of skills depending on the modality.
and ending on your client. And that's what makes it really fun. Yeah. Because it's always different. Exactly. I think all coaches I speak to, myself included, variety and diversity, highest values, freedom.
variety and diversity so so when i'm trying to help a client who is a coach nail their niche it means i'm gonna have to focus and i lose my freedom and say no you gain freedom because you do that Actually, talking about skills and tools and experiences and practices and things, like the skills that you learned whilst doing the training and the hours that you had working with clients and the hours that you had being coached.
It indelibly marks us in a really positive, profound way, I find. And I'm wondering what the impact of all of that immersive experience has had on your... personal relationships like with family and partner and that kind of thing like how if you're okay to speak about that like how would you say that the conversations have changed if at all absolutely i
It's funny. I came home from my first weekend of training. My husband said, you're talking to me differently. I can't quite pinpoint what it is. But over time, I think that I sometimes almost sound like a broken record with how often I say. something like what I'm hearing you say. I say it to my husband. I say it to my kiddos. But and at this point, it is almost a running joke with my husband because I say it so frequently. But truly, the use of paraphrasing in my personal life.
has been really game-changing because sometimes what I'm hearing someone say is not what they're saying. My three and five year old have no problem telling me that's actually not what I was saying. And I think that has been a huge shift. Using that paraphrasing to get rid of my assumptions about.
the people that i know well yeah i love that are you coaching me what's going on there are you and yeah you do right it just creeps in i think there's also and i know other folks have said this but it's so true the depth of listening that you learn in the course, that level three listening, that also has a profound impact. I find that I approach people that I assume that I know everything about with much more curiosity.
And I find myself asking more questions, which has led to very rich conversations with people that I've known for a very long time has really opened things up. And so that's a big one, too. Just real dynamic listening. That's so interesting, isn't it, how that changes. It's just, sometimes it can feel a bit disconcerting for the other person, maybe, where it's just, okay, so this is different, and there's a bit of adjustment.
Because change can be confusing sometimes for other people on the receiving end of that. But yeah. And I'm wondering if we had to fast forward maybe five years into the future from now, like where do you see yourself? What's the big dream for you? I hope that. I am someone that folks who maybe are neurodiverse or work with neurodiverse folks see as a safe.
space for them, a coach that really understands neurodiverse thinkers, neurodiverse people. I'd love to continue working with both that population and then folks who work with that population. And then. I also really want to continue to expand working with women in particular who are going through these liminal transitions, becoming new moms, entering perimenopause, entering menopause. You find that.
As someone who has gone through some of these stages, there are so few resources and people who are having those conversations. And I'd love to be someone that can start to change that and change that narrative and be someone.
who can be with people in those spaces. Beautiful. That would make me happy. Yeah, fantastic. We need people such as you, like ambassadors for... daring to hold space and have conversations about those things that haven't necessarily been explored before and or certainly not on a wider scale so yeah you're doing very important work there amazing yeah
Cool. All right, then. How can people find you if they want to reach out to you? So I'm on LinkedIn. That's always easy. I'm Paige Karstensen and easy to find, but I also... My consulting business, Luminal Development, is luminaldevelopment.com. And that goes through all of my offerings and also has my contact information and provides opportunities for folks to just have a free intro call to learn more about coaching and learn more about me.
And so that's probably both of those ways are great for people to reach out. Yeah, that's so good. And it's so good. Every good coach needs a good website and your website's lovely. Last time I looked at it was just really solid. You helped me with your skills. So I might be a little biased, yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much. It's been a really enjoyable conversation and I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Awesome. Thanks, Phil.
Thank you for listening to the act of coaching. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague who you feel might find it valuable. Don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. because your five-star review helps us reach more people who are curious about the power of coaching. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a future episode. Thanks again for being here. We really appreciate it. and we'll catch you next time.