Ani
Hi, and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. Hey, Brian. Good morning, Ani. Good morning. How are you? I'm great. And you? I'm very good, thanks.
Brian
Here we are, episode 67. And recently, we did a series of episodes on the top 10 questions that different communities or people asked. And we had some people say, Well, what about us? We have some questions, too. And so today, we are talking about the top 10 questions from aspiring coaches inspired by their own somatic transformations.
Ani
I love talking with these people because they're so passionate about somatic work. Usually, the people who contact us have had somatic therapeutic work, Brian, not somatic coaching work. And so they have a lot of questions about the differences between somatic therapy and somatic coaching. But their passion really is like, "this changed my life". I think my passion for this work came from 'this-changed-my-life' incident that I had in college. I think similarly for you, when I was a junior in college, I was having some abnormal bleeding that the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. I pulled a book off my bookshelf. It was 'The Anatomy of the Spirit' by Caroline Myss. My mom had given it to me, actually, when I went off to college. Now that we have kids that are going off to college, I actually gave Charlotte, our daughter, a book. She went off and she gave me the, "Yeah, mom, thanks a lot". She put it on her bookshelf. When I go visit her, I see that book on her bookshelf, and I think to myself, that was my book that changed my life for the rest of my life.
Ani
I wonder if the book I gave my daughter will do that. But anyway. For her, too, yeah. So I didn't look at the book that my mom gave me until I was really having a struggle. And I knew that it had something to do with the chakra system, which I didn't understand much about, and energy medicine, which at that time, I also didn't understand much about. I don't think I understood much about any of what was in the book. But I did know I was having a problem. I couldn't explain. And when I recognized that there was an underlying issue that was causing bodily symptoms, and then it changed my symptoms, they went away. I thought, I've got to tell as many people as possible this. That is often what happens with people who really want to do somatic work. Their lives were changed.
Brian
Their lives were changed personally by it. Exactly. Most definitely. These questions that we're getting right now are from folks who are not necessarily already health and wellness professionals, somatic therapists, social workers, mental health professionals, wellness coaches. I may have said that already- They're usually professionals in other categories.
Ani
They are people who… Gosh, I'm just thinking about a few people who we've talked to in the past. We've talked to scientists, we've talked to entrepreneurs, I've talked to construction workers, talked to actually a bunch of executives. So anybody who's another professional, but not in the helping profession right now.
Brian
Right now, yeah. So they had some type of somatic transformation, and they're like, Oh, my God, this changed my life. I would love to do this in my life now. How do I get to do more of it? And oftentimes, people then do career changes as they go because they're so inspired by this work.
Ani
And they feel really called to it. They feel like it's a calling.
Brian
Yeah, most definitely. Those are the questions that we've received from you based on being inspired by your own changes. Okay, so are you ready to jump in? Yes. Okay, so one of the first questions is Okay, so how do I turn my personal experience with somatic work into a career?
Ani
Gosh. Yeah. Well, to turn it into a career is different than turning it into something that I do on the side sometimes. Because let's just be honest, some people do do that. I probably mentioned this before, but I remember reading a statistic at one point that 80% of the people who go to massage therapy school do not go and become massage therapist.
Brian
Yeah, I would say that was true in the class that I graduated with.
Ani
100% for me, too. Was 80% attrition rate. Yeah. Or more, actually. People were astonished five years after massage school that I had a career because a lot of people were massaging friends and family on the side. I think one of the biggest things that goes into actually turning your personal experience into a career is getting trained as a professional, because especially if you're going the coaching route, coaching is unregulated. You can hurt people if you try to do somatic stuff and you don't have the background, you also don't have to be a licensed professional, but you really do have to have training. That's one thing.
Brian
Most definitely. The first, basically, thing I think about, I had a transformation, how do I turn that into a career, is to ask myself, Well, how would I want to go about doing that actually? Because there's lots of things you can do with somatic work. You can be a somatic educator. You could certainly do somatic coaching. You could do somatic therapy. So there's all kinds of different things that you could do, and you may be more inclined to do one of those things rather than another one of those things. So think about that.
Ani
It could also be a class teacher or be a coach. Is there people who make their career and their living about teaching somatic-based classes, and then there's people who see private clients. Yeah.
Brian
Each one of those careers is a little bit different, and they all include somatic work. The question for you is, where do you feel like you're most called?
Ani
Yeah. What do you want your business model to be? How do you want your business to support your life? What lifestyle do you want? Because each of those, like you said, it's very different. Yeah, that's a really good way to start to conceptualize how you'll move forward and get trained in what to do the thing that you want to do.
Brian
Yeah. A really good way to go about doing that, too, is to work with people, like hire a somatic… someone to do somatic coaching to do some coaching with them. Maybe explore and do some somatic therapy. Take part in some somatic education classes.
Ani
Go to some retreats and workshops.
Brian
Go to some retreat centers. Play with it a little bit and feel like, Oh, God, that's what I want to be doing.
Ani
I really like that you brought this up because a lot of people actually don't do that before they hop into training programs. Just like a lot of kids, we have kids going to college, so it's fresh on my mind all the time. Kids go to college and they never do an internship. That was me. I'd never did an internship, and I hopped into a career. It's great to get that background.
Brian
Yeah. Think about how you fit, try out a bunch of things all around somatic work, and then figure out, hey, what is it that I'm really feeling called to do?
Ani
And then go get trained.
Brian
And then definitely get trained to do it. Absolutely. It's the fastest path to be able to help people.
Ani
It's actually the fastest path. Yeah. Otherwise, you'll be a person who wishes that you had done it 10 years ago. Exactly.
Brian
Yeah. Okay, so next question. All right. Well, Actually, the funny thing is the next question is- We just answered it. Yeah. So what steps do I need to take to become a somatic practitioner that can help people?
Ani
I think we just addressed it, but let's just nut down just a little bit more into this difference between somatic therapy and somatic coaching, which, by the way, we've got a bunch of podcasts about it. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but you can look at the titles and find them. They really are two very different tracks. You can become a therapist who does somatic work. You can go down the path of becoming a body worker who does somatic work, or you could go the somatic coaching path. Those are vastly different professions, hands-on and not hands-on, and licensed professional and not licensed professional, all that stuff.
Brian
Yeah, all that stuff. Also consider, after your training is done, do you want to be working for someone else's company? Or do you want to be working for your own company, too? That has a lot to do with it also, right?
Ani
Yeah. Do you want to work strictly in the wellness profession, or do you want to be working in a larger professional? Because Let's be honest, if you go get hands-on somatic bodyworking thing, you're in the health and wellness lane. You're working in a wellness center, you're working in your own office. It's a very different life than if you're doing something like somatic coaching. If I can just do a plug real for somatic coaching, because Brian and I, our history is in somatic therapeutics. For me, one of the things that I didn't understand, and coaching really wasn't a thing 20 years ago that was super on the radar like it is now. But the difference in being a person who has therapeutic conversations all day and the person who's a professional who has coaching conversations all day, Brian, for me, lifestyle-wise, is a huge difference. Because I found at the end of a therapeutic day, I was drained. I needed to recoup. People used to ask me, How do you protect your energy all the time? I honestly never feel like I have to protect my energy as a coach because I'm always having these kinds of aspirational conversations with people that for me give me so much energy.
Ani
Again, listen to past podcasts, but just super, super quick. The therapeutic conversation is usually How do we get you back to baseline from where you're presenting right now? Whereas the coaching conversation is more about what do you want to achieve? What do you vision for yourself? Who do you want to be? I find those conversations to be so energizing.
Brian
Yeah. It's also occurring to me as you're talking Ani, is that, and I think we've mentioned this, but not, I think, overtly, is that somatic work also can be delineated between hands-on modalities and hands-off modalities. Also, no-hands modalities, which is more the coaching and using our words, asking questions, using linguistics to help people with somatics versus doing hands-off kinds of things, which would be more like energy healing, Reiki, those kinds of things. And then hands-on, which would be more traditional bodywork and manipulative therapies and those types of things. They're all somatic practices. So again, how do you fit? What are you really interested in?
Ani
Got to say this one, too. I've been talking to people recently, Brian, who have been talking about how some somatic communities that they've gotten involved in are very, 'yay, let's move our bodies'. You want to take a look at what your experience has been and what impact you really want to make with people. Because for example, I used to serve people in the JourneyDance community, like years ago, helping them to grow their businesses. And if your experience is in JourneyDance, and then you go and you get trained in a very different modality, and you're like, wait a minute, but I wanted to help people dance. I know that sounds intuitive, but not necessarily. Consider that because not every somatic program that you're going to go take is a mix of the body-mind. Some of the somatic programs you take are very body-based. They're just body. It's like, move your body, like felt in Christ thing. Then some somatics are body-mind, integration-based, more like our program where we're doing body-mind-spirit, integration work. there's also this thing that not every training program that you're going to take has a scientific background to it, Brian. One of the things that the people who come and get certified with us really appreciate is when they go out and they talk to other professionals, they have that science base to lean back on because it does matter so much in our society.
Brian
Yeah, for sure. It's a really important part of it. I'm looking at the questions, and I'm going to jump down a question, not that anybody knows I'm jumping down, but it's going to help us with this part of the conversation. One of the questions is, what are the essential skills I need to start helping others with somatic work? I think part of what we've already talked about, let's fold it into this question to keep the ball rolling here. I think the first essential skill is to do your own work and practice regularly. That's the first and most essential skill of being able to do somatic work with other people is to do your own work on a regular basis. Let's just say that's the first one. I've met people and worked with people who are very highly trained in somatic stuff, but they don't do a lot of their own work, and it shows up. I can even say for myself in full transparency, there's been periods of time where I've gotten really busy with the business and travel and that stuff. My own practice has fallen off a bit. It really affects my capacity to be with someone else, to hold that space, to understand what they're experiencing. Empathy, compassion.
Brian
All those things are really interrupted when I don't do my own practice regularly. That's, I think, the first and most important essential skill of being a somatic practitioner, therapist, coach, whatever, somatic, fill in the blank after.
Ani
Yeah. One of the ways that shows up for people when they're not really sincerely doing their own work is they start to have external circumstances that are bothersome or frustrating. All of a sudden, there's family drama or my clients or not meeting their goals. There's this weird external stuff that a lot of times we think, what's going on out there that once we course correct on the inside, clears up the external fluff.
Brian
Doing your own work is the most primary thing. I know that sounds really basic, fundamental, but it's really important. Got to do that. Don't jump over the heart.
Ani
I mean, with anything, but especially with somatic work, I think. Especially with somatic work.
Brian
Especially with somatic work. The next part of that question is, what are essential skills. As far as what we do here at the Somatic Coaching Academy, we teach in a foundation up way. The very first set of essential skills that we teach somebody are somatic practices. I really think no matter what somatic work you're doing, whatever lane you're in that we've already talked about a little bit, somatic practices, doing your own somatic practices regularly, and also being trained in how to lead other people through somatic practices is a fundamental skill. What do somatic practices look like? Well, there are things like, familiar things like meditation and breathwork, breath practices, let's say, because I think breathwork and breath practices, there's a little different ways that is received in the marketplace. Breathwork, a lot of people think about that as being like, I'm going to work the breath, like breath of fire. I'm really going to activate the system. I'm not always thinking that those are the best things to do all the time for people.
Ani
It does have a very Jung-
Brian
Where breath practices are like, Oh, so I could go different ways with breath practices and do things. We're going to talk about breath practices. So breath practices, meditation, mindful movement practices, self-massage practices. Those are all somatic practices that are really foundational to anything that you're doing with people in the somatic realm. I think essential skills, I think those are the essential skills.
Ani
Some people stop there and they're somatic practitioners. Yeah, exactly. That's great. Some people want to go on and do more.
Brian
Do more specific work.
Ani
Exactly. But having that foundation is essential.
Brian
What are the next essential skills to do somatics to help with people? I think some of the skills are really around knowing how to ask the right questions, and that's where we start coming into coaching. We have our somatic practices where we're leading, holding space. In some ways, I think leading is maybe the best word. I think it is, too. You're really leading people in practices. But you're leading and you're suggesting to other people that they might do some things.
Ani
Yeah, you're like a teacher.
Brian
We're coaching, we're turning that around a little bit. Now we're asking questions that are specific to someone's somatic internal processing systems that then the person themselves starts to come up with the answers around those things. That's another, I think, essential skill. Yeah.
Ani
Well, the coaching is actually a partnership with the client, whereas as a somatic practitioner, you're not necessarily in partnership like that. You're leading. I think that's a really good way to put it.
Brian
Yeah, correct.
Ani
Because it starts to just open up a whole new world, an interesting skillset, but also potential issues that you need to know how to handle when you start asking questions. Then I'm going to say that I've actually had a number of somatic therapeutic sessions myself where the person wasn't trained in asking questions, and they're asking me questions because I know how to ask really good questions that weren't helpful. That's a really good one.
Brian
Yeah, for sure. Again, those essential skills, too, are going to break down into whatever avenue you decide to go into. Go back to the very first question we had of, how can I turn this into a career? You have to just decide which way you're going to go. That's the first thing. I guess as we're talking about this, I've got a little summary already coming into my head for folks. You've had an experience on your own, somatic transformational experience. You want to do that work in the world with other people. That's awesome. Step one, keep doing your own work for sure. Step two, decide which lane you're going to go in. Work with other people, do some practices, train with other… Just decide which way you're going to go. Then learn that skill. You have to really learn a marketable skill, a marketable set of skills or techniques or methods, whatever it is, in order to then turn that into either being hired by a company or to start your own business. That's the block. Do your own work, decide which way you're going to go, learn that marketable certified skill, and then take it into the marketplace.
Brian
I think I'm creating that. That summary is coming to me right now as we're thinking about this.
Ani
Yeah, that sounds good.
Brian
But partly what are the essential skills? They're going to be specific to whatever lane decide to go in.
Ani
Sure. Absolutely. Because some people are going to need business skills, for example, and some people aren't, depending on how they go. Yeah.
Brian
Of course, just to highlight really quick, the lanes that we train people in here, people who do not necessarily already have a wellness background or anything like that, people who have had an accountant who has had a somatic transformational experience and says, I'm ready to shift out of accounting or add something else. What can I do? Well, if you come work with us, you're going to learn first, very first somatic practices, trauma-sensitive somatic practices are the first thing that you're going to learn because we know that that is one of the most effective things to learn first, to turn around and make marketable very, very quickly, to be able to start helping people and generating some revenue. That's the first thing you're going to learn with us. Then, of course, here we are at the Somatic Coaching Academy, so we're really heavy into the somatic coaching lane. So that's the lane that we take people in.
Ani
Then from there, you learn how to create somatic transformations, and from there, actually, how to be a somatic coaching professional. You said trauma sensitive. Are there any questions about trauma sensitivity? Because I think that's- Yes, there are right here.
Brian
What does it mean to be trauma sensitive in somatic coaching?
Ani
I just think that's such an important conversation that is honestly relatively new in the marketplace, I think, on a broad scale, because as soon as you start working with somebody's body or emotions, by the way, you could open up a Pandora's box.
Brian
If you don't already have some skills or backgrounds in what it means to be able to be what we call trauma-aware, trauma-informed, trauma-sensitive, trauma-specific, we have a podcast called The Four Levels of Trauma Awareness. Not awareness, trauma practices. I don't know. Look through the podcast for The Four Levels of Trauma Practice, I think is what they are. I think that's for this. We go in… It's very detailed what each level means. Trauma sensitive is the level where we are learning how to work specifically with people's nervous systems in a way that we are enhancing stability and regulation in their nervous system. That's what it means to be trauma-sensitive in coaching.
Ani
You can handle things that come up, whereas before being trauma-sensitive, if stuff comes up, you really aren't trained to be able to handle those things. We have a great trauma awareness training. You can get a trauma-aware practitioner badge with the Unlocking Human Potential program. It's on demand, and you can do that anytime. Start anytime. Yeah.
Brian
Okay, cool. Hey, what does a typical session look like in somatic coaching?
Ani
Well, I think a little contrast is helpful with this one because a typical session for a somatic body worker doesn't have talking associated with it because the body worker is doing something to somebody's body. So that's that session. And then a somatic therapeutic session is going to be a little bit different than the somatic coaching session because in a somatic therapeutic session, well, sometimes those are combined with body working, too, by the way. Sure. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they are. So let's say it's not. That session is going to look like, first of all, talking. And the sessions usually set up more like a therapy session would be where you come in and the client says what they want to work on that day, and you go in, and you might talk about your past. Past things that have happened, past memories. And then you process whatever it is that's going on, both through talk and maybe through some movement and breath and self-massage and things like that. And then it's time to end, and off we go. With a coaching session, it's actually set up in a very specific way so that… We were just training on this the other day in our Level 3 program… so that our coaches help a person to get where they want to go, and that's in their life.
Ani
To be the person they want to be, have the things they want to have, do the things that they want to do. And that's a real distinct difference between the somatic therapeutic and the somatic coaching session, is the coaching session is set up in a specific way to help somebody grow and get more in their life, aspirational quality. Then some of the stuff in the middle, honestly, looks similar.
Brian
Could be some somatic practices in there. Totally. Regulation work, that sorts of things.
Ani
But the end it looks a lot different because at the end of a somatic therapeutic session, it's like, Okay, we're done. When are you going to see me again? Kind of thing. But at the end of a coaching session, we're talking about evoking awareness around what did you learn about yourself today? We're talking about what action steps are you going to take following the session? Where are you going to go with where we went today? What accountability do you need or want? What does that look like for you? That coaching container is a vastly different experience than a somatic therapeutic container. That's what a somatic coaching session would look like.
Brian
Yeah, great description of that. Okay, another question. How can I be sure I'm ready to coach others safely and effectively?
Ani
I'm really interested in what you have to say.
Brian
My answer to this is to, number one, get trained. So number one, get trained, and make sure you're trained in trauma-sensitive methodologies when you're doing somatic coaching. Because the question is about coaching, so I'm answering specifically to this question.
Ani
Yeah, and safety, too. How do I know I'm ready to have a safe session? Yeah.
Brian
So get trained, number one. Make sure it's trauma-sensitive training. Make sure that you are working with… The program you're working with, where you get instructor feedback on what you're doing. You're doing plenty of peer sessions with your cohort peers you're working through so that instructors, mentors have their eyes on you, giving you feedback right along the way. How can you be sure that you're… Do you have a dialog going with your instructors and your mentors? Is there a way to get a hold of them directly so that you can make sure you're getting your questions answered? What are the competencies in the program? How are you checked out on those things? Are you clear about that? Does your instructor clearly say, Great. Okay, so this is what we like. What's happening here, this is really looking good. These are some areas for growth. Is then your instructor giving you parameters on this is what I think you're ready to start doing. This is what I'd get a little more work on. A lot of that, how do you know? You really have to trust and lean into your instructor team to not always give you the green light, but to really reflect back to you that you're ready to start doing these things in a safe way.
Ani
I'd like to think that upon graduation, you're going to know you're ready. I think that's the mark of a really great program, too.
Brian
Yeah. You'll know you're ready.
Ani
You know you're ready. It's graduation, and of course, I'm ready. Yeah.
Brian
Actually, there's another question that feeds into that. It's, how can I build my confidence working with clients.
Ani
I think you just spoke to a lot of that. The peer shares that we see in our program are a huge confidence builder. By the time we get to the place where we're testing people out on their competencies, they just have a lot of confidence.
Brian
Yeah, more confidence. I think about confidence. Of course, here we are having conversation with you, listener, who has had your own somatic transformation and is wondering how you can turn your personal experience into a career. That's what the questions we're asking. Now, if you're asking about how can you build your confidence working with clients, that's a looking forward thing because you're not working with clients right now yet because you haven't been trained yet to do that. Let's just talk about confidence for a second. How do we build confidence in any way? Confidence is really built when you have had enough repetitions with doing something that you've had enough feedback on that you're accurate with the task or strategy. Think about driving a car. When you first started driving a car, the first time you got behind the wheel, my guess is you probably weren't too confident. If you were too confident, you were probably dangerous. That's the thing.
Ani
That's similar here, isn't it?
Brian
The thing is if it's the first time you're doing something and you're really confident, then it might be that you're not- Maybe you should get some coaching. Accurately assessing where you are with things. Too much confidence can be a little dangerous. Let's assume that the first time you drove a car, you weren't very confident. Then after your first year of driving, where you drove through some snowstorms and some rainstorms.
Ani
Because some of those bumpy roads actually do really build your confidence.
Brian
Sometimes you fall into a ditch, and you got to get pulled out of the ditch, and then you're like, Now I know not to get that close to the ditch again. All that stuff actually- You heard somebody did that once. Somebody did that, but I've been in ditches, too. The thing is, it's really about… That's how you build confidence. You build confidence by practicing, by practicing, by practicing, by practicing, and by cataloging evidence that you were successful with your learning. Not necessarily always successful with the exact strategy, but did you keep learning things from it? That will inherently develop confidence such that then you end up in a session and someone asks you a question or you ask them a question and you're totally in the flow. There's no doubt. There's no self doubt around you being a part of it. I will also say this, too. One thing that we really… One difference between being a person who's had a somatic transformation and not been trained versus someone who has been trained is oftentimes when we're working in the world of somatics, which is very murky oftentimes because we're dealing with sensations which are very murky.
Brian
We're dealing with emotions which are very murky. If you have not been trained to navigate through that territory with a specific process, what will happen is you'll end up in all kinds of potholes and rabbit holes and backwoods and bogs and marshes and scary places. Yeah.
Ani
Right? So if you're- They can be scary.
Brian
You're guiding someone through those places and you find yourself together lost in the woods, boy, that is a great disservice and dangerous for you and your client.
Ani
It's moments like that that aren't getting your car in a ditch and getting pulled out and going, Whoa, I know not to go in that ditch. It's like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this with my life, kinds of conversations you have with yourself because it can get big.
Brian
Basically, one of the things we really talk about a lot, a lot, a lot in our training program is to trust the process. The process works. When you work the process, the process works.
Ani
I've noticed with our students is they don't have the big, scary dark woods kinds of moments with their clients. I think that's because they are trained and they can handle it and because of who they are and the practices that they do. They don't even attract that thing. But it's more the people who haven't been trained and aren't doing their own internal work to really do their own pattern, deconstruction, things like that, that those kinds of things will come up. I remember for me, I remember the session. I had a session where it was a big, scary thing that happened. I did have the training to lean back on it. But really, one of the wake up calls for me is I was not being in full integrity with my own practice at that time, and I really had to get my act together with doing that.
Brian
Yeah. Just another little tip there on building confidence is work with a process. Don't rely on your intuition to get you through a session because that's dangerous, and that will create avenues and places of self doubt, where when you lean into a process, then you can become confident using the process. And then no matter where you are during the session, you always ask yourself, Where am I in the process?
Ani
I'm glad you brought up the intuition word because intuition is something that comes up a lot in terms of actually, even in the coaching world, as aspirational, you should really use your intuition. We want to keep our eyes on that as somatic practitioners, actually.
Brian
For sure. I think intuition is a great skill to… I don't even want to say it's a skill. Something to bring, a quality or characteristic to bring once you've dialed in the process. Absolutely. I don't want to lead with intuition with somatic work because your subconscious pathways will be leading you, and all of a sudden, your subconscious is leading your client's subconscious, and that is not a great place to be.
Ani
No. I hope it's not. Yeah.
Brian
Okay. Whole other podcast, maybe. Yeah. Okay, so let's keep going. What support is available as I make the transition into coaching?
Ani
Well, I think we have to talk about that from the Somatic Coaching Academy perspective.
Brian
Because we don't know what other program support someone's going to have.
Ani
For us, at least right now in the foreseeable future, any of our grads continue to have access to their program faculty indefinitely in the virtual communities that we hold, but also to their peers in their, not just the cohorts that they went through, but the greater graduate community. I would say you really must be a part of a collegiate group of people who's actually working, who's actually working, and not just doing work on themselves, but working with people to be able to talk about the things that come up.
Brian
Yeah. In our community, if you're a graduate within our community, then we do monthly office hours for the whole community come and learn. We do office hours and all kinds of things to help people build their practices and their skills.
Ani
Yeah, business building and skill building and keeping people up on market changes too, because the market changes right now in the somatic world are actually pretty profound. Coaching world, too.
Brian
Yeah, we do skillshares. If you're a part of our program, you get open coaching as a part of your program. You're getting a lot of support to help help you become the absolute best coach that you can be.
Ani
I would say that when you look at certification trainings, you want to make sure you're not just getting dropped off at the end. Correct.
Brian
Make sure you have ongoing support forever as a part of a really well-held community.
Ani
I've gotten training before where I've gotten dropped off and it's been fine, but not with this thing.
Brian
Yeah, not with this. Last question. What career paths are open to me as a certified somatic coach? How can I attract clients as a new somatic coach?
Ani
Okay. The first part of that question about career paths, we talked about a little bit. You can go be an employee either in the somatic therapeutic or the somatic coaching or the somatic body working lanes in any one of those, or you can work for yourself. You don't always have to work for yourself. I think that's a really big consideration because the next question about how do I attract clients, if you're looking to gain skills as a somatic coach, then go work for yourself. You're actually looking at learning two things. How do I become a somatic coach? How do I become a business owner? If you haven't worked for yourself before. If you haven't worked for yourself, if you've worked for yourself, but you've sold products, say, but now you're working with people, that's also a totally different business. It's not a problem. It's just a mindset shift, and you got to know that. You're going to have a mindset shift into becoming a somatic practitioner, but then you're also going to have a mindset shift in becoming a solopreneur. And those are two different mindsets that you will need to transform yourself into and adopt.
Ani
One of the easiest ways actually to adopt a new mindset is to do somatic work. So throughout the course of your program, you can be working on shifting your mindset to become the person that you want to be. But you really do need to have a business mindset, adopt a business mindset.
Brian
Yeah, certainly after starting your own, if you're starting your own business, for sure.
Ani
Yeah. Just a quick aside on that. Did you have something to say? Go ahead. A quick aside on this, how do I attract clients? In our program, we primarily teach you the sales skills to be able to do that because you can go off and get yourself involved in the crazy, expensive, rabbit hole-driven marketing stuff that a lot of programs will teach you. Online marketing. Yeah. Even if you go and you get a certification that doesn't have any business building involved in it, which ours does, then you're left to your own devices. What a lot of people do is they start creating online businesses and marketing funnels and social media, mumbo jumbo, that really doesn't get you new clients. We teach you how to get new clients. The way that we do that is through sales skills, conscious, loving, intentional conversations.
Brian
Yeah, win, win, win, win scenarios for you and your client and everyone involved. This is in summary again. I know I said this a little bit ago, but I feel compelled to come back and just wrap with this. If you've had a somatic transformation of your own, you want to start doing this work in the world, the first step is to keep doing your own work for sure. That's really important. Next step is to sample other practitioners' ways of doing things. Sample somatic practices, go to retreat centers, take some classes, hire a somatic coach for a while, do some somatic therapeutics, as many different disciplines as you can experience to say, Hey, what one really feels right for me? Why don't you decide what one feels right for you, sign up, find a program. We've actually written a really great article for one of our partners, Life Coach magazine on how to choose a somatic coaching program.
Ani
Oh, yeah, the ultimate guide. That's actually in our library.
Brian
Yeah. You check that out, too. If you're thinking about a somatic coaching program, you're like, Well, which one do I choose? We wrote an entire guide for that of how to check boxes to go through and ask about, Hey, does the program offer this, this, and this? Is it a match for me? So definitely check that out. Choose a program, get trained in that program, keep practicing those skills, and then learn how to bring it into the marketplace in a really holistic and heart-centered way.
Ani
And it's worth it. It's such a great career. It's such a life-giving, wonderful career. And if you do feel called to it, follow that calling. We hope that we've helped to answer a lot of your questions. And if you still have more questions, our team loves to talk to you, so reach out [email protected], and we'll set up a time to chat.
Brian
Thanks so much for joining us.
Ani
Bye-bye.