Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn where it is super exciting to have back at the pub some of the newer coaches who we met in February, March time. So it's seven months since we last had a conversation and we agreed that we'd come back together and see what was happening. So welcome Penny Van Den Berg from Canada. Hello, thank you. Maria Fernandes from the UK. Sounds like a game show, doesn't it? Febronia Ruocco from the UK. Hi, thank you for welcoming me back.
Kristin Breuss from the UK. Great to be here. So my question to you, listeners, if you haven't listened to the last episode, go back and listen to where we were then, and then you'll be able to really get a better sense of where we are now. And if you want to get every episode as it gets released, do subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast channel. So everybody, how's it going? Who wants to go first and catch us up with what's happened in the last seven months? I can go.
So I am actually literally entering my seventh month of business. back in February, I was talking about a marathon, just doing your own pace. And I continue to do my own pace. Sometimes I'm not as happy with my pace as other days, but Melinda Cohen has said, do the best you can with what you have. where you're at. that's kind of my framework. And so I'm still really creating a strong foundation. I have it I've kind of gone more internally in working on the business.
So back in March, I created a post called like it takes a community to grow a solopreneur. So I've had some more incredible people and teams that I've been engaging with. So just want to do a shout out if I can. So I've been working with Shayanne O'Driscoll, I call her a marketing maven. So I'm learning about how to create a campaign, marketing campaign. Daddy Eany and his team at Meresee, I've been taking a course on learning how to create an online course.
Thanks Abe Crystal and his team at Rizuku, I've been working with them and this is where my course is going to be the platform it's going to be using. And then recent, more recently, Melinda Cohen and her team with, coaches consoles. So, I've been working hard at interviewing people and, and I've created a, a 90 minute workshop. called Speak Up and Be Heard, the Art of Assertive Communication. And also, I'm hopefully have my pilot course completed in November, for November.
It's called Confident Conversations, a communication skills course for introverts. So, I become more clear on my, who I really wanna serve. through those conversations. And this is really helping align everything. Like it's starting to feel like, it's, it's, yeah, it feels right. So, so these are the things that I'm working on and, and so a little less with the coaching piece more just creating some stuff. So yeah.
well thank you for shouting out to all those great people Penny we've got an episode coming up which i'm going to record very shortly which is called marketing for introverts with Jenny Proctor the introverts will go So Jenny won one of the categories at the Business Book Awards and went home early. Has to die, interestingly. So yeah, was a great thing. Last week or the week before the episode that we did with Chloe Garland, she was talking about when she started her business.
She said, I threw everything at the wall and some of it stuck. which I thought was really interesting. And what was most interesting was that her break wasn't any of those things, it was something else. But she needed to have thrown everything at the wall for that to be true. So, Maria, how are you? I'm doing really well, thanks Claire. Really pleased to be back.
You've got me just less than a week after graduating from the postgraduate certificate, which has the longest name, Coaching for Behavioural Change, talking about neuroscience and psychology. And really the past seven months has been incredibly busy, more focusing on the coaching side than on the business side. but coming back to the business. So biggest thing was at the beginning of the summer, passed my ACC exam. So thank you. So I'm officially International Coaching Federation accredited.
I've done a lot of studying in my life and I was surprised by how much it struck me, how proud I was, how how much it meant to me to actually become ICF accredited. And I think part of it has been working with so many incredible people, know, thinkers to help them. It's so cool if you think about it, that you have to do X number of hours, but that also translates into X number of people that you've worked with to help them. So I think that's why it's more meaningful for me.
So yeah, seven months. ICF accreditation, a graduation ceremony, which I got to take my dog on to because it was outside. And I'm coming back to the business. So I took a few months out just to do a bit of part -time work in my old type of work, because the realities are that you've got a mortgage to pay, you've got bills to pay, I think it's really important to remember that if you are like me who just decided to kind of launch in, see how this experiment would go.
So yeah, the realities of that, understanding what that means, and now I'm coming back to do a personal branding challenge. So if I can shout out some thanks to the female founders rise community, which I'm taking part in a personal branding challenge at the moment. It's so important to not just walk the walk, do the coaching, but also talk the talk. Tell people about the coaching and the work that you've done. So that's what I've learned in summary over the past seven months. fantastic.
I love how you really describe that your hundred coaching hours have faces. Hmm. because behind every hour there's a human story. It's more than just a number. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, thank you for that. That's a beautiful thing to say. Feb, how are you? I'm good, thank you. It's great to be here and to be hearing everybody's stories. and what's been up with you for the last seven months.
Well, mine's been quite similar to Maria's because I was on the same course, but in a different cohort. So I've just graduated as well with the postgraduate certificate in driving, using coaching to drive behavioral change. I think I've got the title right there. And my game plan was a little bit different because I already had a business. So I was able to add my coaching to that. I'm a marketeer.
And my plan for this year was primarily to gain more knowledge in the theory of coaching, to gain my accreditations and to get a lot of coaching practice done. And I think next year there'll be a bit more of a push from me on the business side. luckily, I already have the marketing know -how. So I wanted to focus on really getting to grips with the coaching. And it's been fantastic. I'm accredited with the EMCC at senior practitioner level.
I wanted to have submitted for ICF by the time we did this podcast and I did submit last week. So I'm just waiting to do the exam. Well done. And doing the 100 hours, it is quite a milestone. It's quite an achievement, but it's also been for me quite action packed because I crammed it into a summer and got it all done. So lots of coaching, lots of practical experience. Yeah, so quite happy at the moment. Great, well it's lovely to have you back and Kristen!
Bravo to all of you, first of all, and it is great to be here. My context has been a little bit different. I joined a team last February in a church and one of the roles that I, hats that I wear here is to be an internal coach. I also have extended that opportunity to the diocese. Although not particularly vocally, I'm sort of waiting to see what happens because for one of the few times in my life, I'm maybe not being hugely goal -oriented about this, which is a bit unlike me.
And I think it's a sign of the coaching. kind of working for me because I'm allowing it to inhabit my life a little bit more and be infused into a lot of different aspects of my life, letting go of perhaps needing to fix or have the answer or which was something that was very much part of my pre -clergy. or I felt it was anyway when I was in HR in the banking industry. it's been a really, I'd say more internal journey for me. I am working on my coaching hours.
I'm not even at 50 yet, but I'm doing it and I'm probably a little bit too strict about what I count as coaching and what I don't because I'm using it all the time. And I'm not putting a lot of that on my log. And I love it. think one thing I'll just give it my shout out would be really to Claire your supervision community because I have found that to be a really amazing resource for continued community. I miss the course having finished level one in April.
And so the supervision gives a little bit of discipline to my practice if you will. And I found the last one particularly nourishing around to be a really useful coach, we need to be willing to not be used, if that's the right word, and for people to not. And it was funny right as I had let go because I hadn't had anyone request a coaching session just as I had let go thinking well maybe this internal coaching thing just isn't gonna work.
Somebody said I really need a coaching session with you when can we do it and I thought that's interesting just as you you know I'd let go of maybe the need and realize actually the journey is about this not being part of my identity this being something that is offered and people can choose or not choose. That it kind of came back and I had a session today with somebody and it's so I'm enjoying it.
I'm going to continue to work toward an ICF possibility, but I'm not being massively goal -oriented about it for one of the few times in my life. And actually just collecting information so it's there if you decide to do that is a useful thing because you don't have to go, I have to get this.
Thank you for shouting out for the supervision community because I think as we come into the autumn, one of the things that I've noticed is that there's quite a lot of people whose work died down over the summer and some have picked up and some haven't and it's difficult to know whether that's a summer thing or whether that's an industry thing. the moment.
But people are moving up and down the layers in the supervision community and when they have less work they're going downgrading and when they've got more work they're upgrading so it's actually really doing what we wanted it to do which is very exciting. So some beautiful stories of some work of some hard work and some soft work going on. I guess one of my questions is What do you wish you'd known? What do you know now that you wish you'd known when we last were talking together?
all those faces go off thinking. Go on, fat. I was just going to say when we met last time, I'd been awarded the PCEC and it felt like a massive hill to climb to get towards the ICF submission. So I wish I'd had a little bit more confidence in that I would do it because I set myself the goal of doing the submission by the end of the year and I actually beat that goal by three months. Well done.
And it was just purely because like how Kristen said, I just loved the coaching and got really engaged and had a number of really great clients from the marketing industry with great topics. And it was a great journey with all those individuals. But if I had, if I'd had the faith at that point in time in the first open table, I think I wouldn't have seen it as such a big hill climb. So listeners, if that's your journey, I hope you heard what Feb just said. What about Athas? I'll go.
I wish I had appreciated the community that I was in so actively when I was part of the Transforming Conversations into Level One course. I miss that. I love seeing some of those faces on supervision, which is probably the supervision community and the coaching, you know, the coaching practice. Yeah. that I occasionally pop into. But I don't think I appreciated being in that. And I've been reflecting on whether it's time to engage more fully in something.
I don't know if you have any suggestions about that. But I feel I could use a little bit more consistent sort of peer support, perhaps. sometimes that's a painful thing isn't it and sometimes it's contacting people and going shall we be a bit of a tribe? Yeah, good idea. you know those things are different. There are quite a lot of students who've trained with us have a group and I don't know if you're in that and if you're not we can talk about that offline.
So Maria and Penny what do you know now that you wish you'd known in February? It's quite related to what Kristen said. When I went back into some of the work that I used to do, one of the reasons that I said at the interview, I was really missing working as part of a team. When you're working as part of a team, you've got a shared mission. You can talk to other people about what you're doing. And you've just got this camaraderie.
I'm also part of your supervision community and I echo what Kristen said, it's such an incredible support. It's not quite the same as working together on a shared mission though. And coaching in the way that I'm doing it, I'm not an internal coach, I coach individuals, is such a solitary pursuit.
One of the things that really helped over the summer, I was finishing off my assignment for the course I just graduated from and one of my colleagues and I used to just meet every day, put our cameras on video called each other and put our cameras to a side just so you know that you've got somebody else there, co -working, virtually co -working and it made such a huge difference. So there's something about having a group of people you know your tribe.
But there's also something about how can we create those spaces, maybe in person, maybe we're working on similar projects. So my colleague and I, we're going to pick that up again to work more on our business stuff, because we've got parallel journeys. I have a co -working agreement with one of our team. We've been together all afternoon today and doing separate things, but just chatting away now and then.
I also have an agreement with another coach who lives in the town where we meet on a Friday in a cafe. In theory, we're both meant to work. In practice, we generally drink coffee, but there is this... There's something about a shared endeavour to be doing work, isn't there? Even if it's not the same work. That's great, Maria. Thank you. What about you, Penny? Actually, as people were talking, I was writing down three C's. have connection, community, and celebrations.
And maybe it's not so much as what I know, more as what I want to do more of or to do. So as a solopreneur, you're wearing every single hat and being new to business, it's a slog to learn everything. so I think it's important for me anyways, is to remember to always to look back and recognize what I have done because there's so much more ahead, right? But if I could just look back and say, look what you did today or well done on this. I think that will help keep the momentum going as well.
And, and it's hard work. And most recently, like I became part of the weekend project at Queens University here in Kingston, group of women entrepreneurs through Cheyenne's course as another group of women. I engaged just yesterday with a Kingston group of local coaches. So I'm starting to create that. local community, which is lovely and women and it's, you know, we're lifting each other up. So I think that has been something probably I should have done earlier, but I'm kind of like a turtle.
a little bit slow, but I'm slow and steady. So for me, it's more maybe not because there's going to be so much I still don't know. So it's for me, it's remembering for the doing piece. And that self care, you know, is really important too.
Yeah and some things will work and some things won't and that's really okay because that's just how it is and yeah we need to try some things out on the way and we're not going to get yeah we're not going to get 100 % you know for everything but it's a question of finding enough tribe isn't it to to feel that you've got company in the the in the journey. Can I offer something? Can I offer a thought? Because I've coached quite a few founders in the marketing insights sector this summer.
And I think what's interesting is when individuals are starting businesses, there's an automatic feeling that you need to network with other entrepreneurs and solopreneurs. And that takes time, but that doesn't always yield business. It builds connection. And I always end up kind of guiding the coachees to what's the first thing we need to do when we're building a business? Tell people what we're doing.
That's the first thing, because if people don't know what we're doing, how can we sell to them? So I just thought it was interesting because there's also the kind of feeling in the insight sector. When I start a business in the first six months, I'm going to generate revenue. And some people are very lucky and they do because they already have established partners that they could carry into their business.
but most people don't and it takes 12 months, 18 months, 24 months to build revenue streams. So the thought that was just coming up for me is, know, sometimes I think we all put too much pressure on ourselves to finish our coaching, get our expertise and then suddenly we're big solopreneurs. It doesn't quite happen like that. Yeah. And sometimes we need to run another income stream next to it for a while in order to, to not be super anxious in the coaching side of the business.
years and years ago, I wrote, I wrote a series of steps really that I'd learned from running this business. And one of them was don't burn your bridges. you know, sometimes we just need to run a couple of things next to each other for a while. And that might be that we had a payout. It might be that we have another job on the side. It might be that we dip back into another kind of work Maria for a little bit of time and then come back out again.
Because it's really important that we don't need the income from the next person we coach in order to be able to eat our dinner tonight. Because if we do. that's going to impact the way that we are together in this space. I think it also impacts your, I agree completely, I think it also impacts your ability to be creative.
If you're constantly worrying about being paid, how can you think about how, you know, what you're going to do in marketing, what the next thing you're going to do with regard to the business might be. Penny, your new program that you're planning sounds incredible. I can imagine that that took a lot of mental power. And if you're spending your time being anxious. Where's that creativity coming from? Absolutely. So I'm really interested lovely people. What are your hopes for the next 12 months?
What's the one thing? That is a multiple question Claire. What's the one thing that you would like to focus on in the next year? your hope. Well, for me, it's getting my course up and running and have a few iterations. The women that well, the people that I had my info sharing sessions to do my market research were all midlife introverted women. So I do want to open up to introverts.
So that might, you know, I'd love to speak with other people that don't identify as a woman to see if there's other pieces that would be more specific to that group of individuals. So my one thing is just get that course up and running and have that as part of my marketing campaign and get comfortable in that. Yeah, and do listen out for that episode with Jenny Proctor about marketing for introverts because I'm hoping they'll send me a review copy.
But I'll try and get at a spill all her intelligence on the podcast so you can all listen in. What about you Maria, what's your one thing? I've been thinking a lot about clarifying my purpose, know, why am I doing coaching? Doing coaching. Why am I working with people? Who do I want to help? And so in 12 months time, I want to have a lot more clarity on that.
It will be in 12 months time, it will be the end of my second year taking working with, think is working with clients for money and the end of the third year of coaching completely. And so I hope to have a much better idea of that. And I hope that other people will also have a clear idea of what I'm about. Great, great, because the clearer the better.
There was a biography of somebody I saw on LinkedIn the other day and she said, work with divorced, it was something like divorced single parents in the technology industry. I mean, it was so clear that if that was you, would absolutely know that she was the right person for you. So yeah, so clarity helps. And then of course we can work with other people as well. But clarity where you look at it and you go, yeah, that's me, can really make a difference.
I'm the kind of person who's usually always working towards stuff, towards goals. And I've given myself the goal that next year, no goals. No goals. We're just going to enjoy doing marketing and we're going to enjoy doing coaching and see where both takes us. We've done lots of foundational work this year.
So I think it's time to let that sit, let that breathe, see what the response is and just enjoy being and enjoy doing without having deadlines and... know, accreditations and exams and stuff hanging over me. I've enjoyed this year. It's been tremendous, but you can't do that every year. Well, I can't. It's just too much, takes, requires too much stamina. And there's something, isn't there, about integrating what we're learning into ourselves before we add more things to it.
Hmm. I was thinking this morning or yesterday, I think I put something on LinkedIn about the difference between knowledge and wisdom. And there's something about in this season of your work, in this season of your journey, trust that you know enough and the art of the next phase, which could be quite a long phase, to turn the knowledge into wisdom. Absolutely. and let it cook. Let it percolate. Yeah absolutely absolutely. Kristen what about you?
Well, I really resonate with that and I do have a hope though. So it's not a goal but a hope and it's really to Be a resource for other clergy who are in Maybe a bit of a, maybe feel a bit stuck or want to explore and dream. And I'd love to be a support for, for clergy in that way. And where I am right now, we're kind of developing a bit of a friends network and we have a gathering in the middle of November.
And I'm hoping that that I could get to know those 50 to 70 people who are all seeking to kind of open up a new way of doing church life, you know, just won't go into the specifics on that, but it's something that really aligns with my values and passions. And I'd love to be that. And I'd also love to support church organizations and in. managing their people better. So take my HR skills.
I've been doing a few workshops on appraisals and on feedback and brave communication and all those things that have been very transformative for me in my life and I used to do in my old world, but bringing it into church teams, which to me it feels so obvious and yet happens really rarely. I've been shocked at how badly.
managed often churches are and so I really hope and I have a couple things already in the fire there of going to other diocese and doing the workshop I did over here over there and I don't know if that counts in my coaching hours by the way but I do hope that that continues but in a way that isn't hugely burnout that is really kind of organic and and fun and feels capacity building so that's where I can see my
purpose starting to emerge across a lot of different places instead of going deep in one place. Yeah, so it sounds there that you're talking about a lot of integration, bringing things together and back to Feb's percolating word. Yes, that really resonates what you said. maybe, look, I'm encouraged by your point about the ICF. I think I have a little bit of intimidation.
So I hope if we do this again, that I, you know, it'd be great to get the accreditation, but I'm also gonna do it in a evolutionary way. You're a great chunk of the way there already Kirsten from what you said so you're not far off.
In the supervision community we've collected and it's available to people in the community and people who aren't, we've collected a whole resource of wisdom about the ICF process including some videos and some conversations about neurodivergent coaches making applications so do have a look if that's a useful thing for you. So I feel we should do this again in another year. Meanwhile we'll get that in the diary, makes a note herself. There's an accountability there.
All my accountability partners. I love it. I'm There's nothing to stop you lovely people meeting with each other in the interim. But my question to you is that some of our coaches very experienced some of the people who listen to the coaching in a brand new. So what would you say to our listener who's a brand new coach? What would be your wisdom for them standing where you are now? Let's go in a different order. Feb, what's your wisdom to a brand new coach? It's a little bit of a roller coaster.
So there are times when you feel really elated and really buzzed because you're learning all this great new content. And there are times when the self doubt creeps in and you think, you know, am I, am I any good at this malarkey? Am I kidding myself here? Then you look on LinkedIn and there's a jungle of coaches out there and you think, my God, how am I going to stand out from the crowd here as well with what I'm offering?
And I think amongst all of that, you just have to be really clear on why you embarked on the journey in the first place, which is probably because you wanted to make a difference. Most coaches do want to make a difference and be of service to others. And that's what got me through the difficult, choppy waters and getting the incredible feedback from the people that I provided the service to and supported. That's what makes me realize why I wanted to be a coach.
So I'd say hang in there, go with the flow and maybe surround yourself with a few peer buddies to get you through. Yeah. And it's so interesting, Fred, that you've gone back to the faces that Maria brought up, which is that, that, that your coaching hours have names. They're beautiful humans. Thank you. So I'm going to be really mix you up. Penny, what's your wisdom nugget?
So, Melinda Cohen and her group, she has villains and superpowers and she's named all these different villains and I've really had a transformation in being able to identify those little villains that come up, you know, talking in your head and what I can do as my superpower. So that's been really helpful. And I guess the theme is mindset. I'm doing with my course, I'm doing some more research and I came across Dr. Sanka Holzer and she's talking about core values and acquired values.
And yeah, it just comes to knowing what you're doing is aligning with who you really are and you'll know it and not allowing those outer or inner voices take hold. And so just knowing if this is something that's core to who you are and it's feeling good, you've got these superpowers that you can tap into and overcome those internal and external voices that are not helpful. Yeah, and your tribe will carry you on the days that you're feeling at the bottom of Feb's roller coaster.
You know, it's how do we connect ourselves to people who can support. So I set up my business in 1995. I now have a company with employees and everything, but I still have freelance paranoia. where I look at the diary and I go, no! And that's just, and then I have to say to myself, that's okay. That's a normal thing. I don't have it every day. But if I look at a stretch and there's nothing in it, I think, golly, where's that, you know, where's that going to come from?
So Kristen, what's your nugget of wisdom? I think I'd just say keep going. That's great! Because it can change your life for the better. It has mine. This for me has not been about a business plan or this. It was really someone who suggested I go to Transforming Conversations because I was not a very good listener. And in a couple of contexts. And it's changed my life. I'm very, very grateful for it.
So I would say, who knows what it may do for that person who's listening to this potential wisdom, but like trust the process. Great. And the listening journey never stops, does it? So I've just done another podcast with Oscar Trimboli on listening where we were pushing to see how much more we could learn that we didn't know. was freely, it's coming out very soon. It's in edit at the moment and I'm going to just sabotage the schedule and drop it in as soon as it's ready.
If you think you get episodes of Wednesdays and Saturdays, this one is just going to be random. I will not be able to sit on it. So Maria, you have the final word. What's your piece of wisdom? Two, maybe two, tiny one, tiny one. The smaller one is take really good care of yourself because you are, hopefully you've learnt that in your training, but it's hard work.
And the second bit is about trust, trusting yourself, trusting your skills, your knowledge, and also the relationships that you're building with the people who you're coaching. Because... Sometimes you can be midway through a session and be like, my goodness, where are we going? But if you take a deep breath and just relax, sometimes that's where the magic happens. Yeah, and ask them because it's because getting lost is part of the point. The question is, what do do with it when you get lost?
Great. Well, thank you so much for coming. Penny Van Den Berg, Maria Fernandez, Febronia Ruocco and Kristen Breuss. What an absolute pleasure to have you. I will send you an invitation for another episode of the year. I can't wait to find out where you are then. Looking forward to it Yeah.
And thank you everyone for listening and do pop in, send us comments and things we'd love to know what are your insights and what are you learning and what would you like to say to these fabulous people because you will notice having listened to the last episode when they were on in February and this one you'll have noticed some shifts and you might want to share what they are. We'll be back again next week unless the Oscar Trimboli episode drops before then. Take care everybody, bye bye.
Bye. Bye!