Only One Mic Podcast
Carl Jerard, Brooklyn Dre, and JRob welcome you to The Only One Mic Podcast. We are joined each week by authors, activists, advocates, community leaders, and professionals from several walks of life who would like to offer their experience, expertise, or commentary on the various topics you will be interested in learning.
Only One Mic Podcast
Living Authentically: How to Show Up for Yourself Every Time
What truly defines a coach, and how do they empower their clients to reach their full potential? Join us as we host an enlightening conversation with Sophia Casey, CEO of Sophia Casey Enterprises and founder of the International Coaching and Leadership Institute. Sophia shares her remarkable transformation from a consultant and HR director to a certified coach, emphasizing the importance of seeing clients as naturally resourceful. We explore the challenges faced when clients set lofty or seemingly unrealistic aspirations. Reflecting on her early career, Sophia discusses the pivotal moment she learned to shift her focus from her fears to her clients' limitless potential. We delve into the differences between coaching, therapy, mentoring, and consulting, and why coaches must understand their unique role. Sophia also sheds light on maintaining credibility and qualifications in the coaching profession, ensuring that we, as coaches, stay true to our purpose and expertise.
Personal growth and authentic connections are at the heart of this discussion. We share personal anecdotes about overcoming self-sabotage and embracing one's unique gifts. Learn about the transformative power of genuine connections and the importance of surrounding oneself with like-minded individuals who support your aspirations. From Sophia's journey as a published author to creating impactful resources like the 31-day journal "Ease and Flow," this episode is packed with inspiration and practical tips for achieving success while staying authentic. Engage with us across various platforms, and remember, every story is worth hearing.
Discover more about Sophia Casey MCC by clicking the links below.
https://sophiacasey.net/
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=sophia+casey&i=stripbooks&crid=1QE5RO7XE6MWB&sprefix=sophia+casey%2Cstripbooks%2C49&ref=nb_sb_noss
Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:Give me a moment with your friend. I've never been up to a level for my thoughts before. Welcome to the Only One Mic Podcast Carl Girard and Brooklyn Dre riding on this one. We also got a very, very special guest, miss Sophia Casey. She is the CEO of Sophia Casey Enterprises and founder and chief empowerment officer of the International Coaching and Leadership Institute. Risen Sophia, how you doing what's?
Speaker 3:going on Sophia Better now, Better now. So however I was doing before, it doesn't matter. I'm doing great now. I'm so grateful to be here.
Speaker 2:Oh, grateful to have you, grateful to have you. So, as always, you know, we were super excited to have you on and I know that you're in the coaching space. So I got to ask you as my first question, you know, because we had another brother on here, brian Isom.
Speaker 2:I love listening to that Brian Isom very good brother and so I had to ask Brian. I said you know what, brian? What is a coach? What qualifies a coach? You know, because we got a lot of people in the space that say I'm a coach here, I'm a coach there, I'm a coach financing, I'm a coach, life coach and this, but it's like what makes you qualified to do that? You know what I mean and which he said you got to ask that question. So I'm going to ask you that same question, for you to answer for our audience what is a coach? How do you define it?
Speaker 3:So well, first of all, I put a disclaimer up front is that I'm about to step on a lot of toes right now. Okay, all right. So out there in those internet streets, the definition of coach is somebody that you've hired to tell you what to do. An example is like a book coach. A book coach you'll hire a book coach for that book coach to tell you exactly how to publish your book, write and publish your book, and they may even promise that you're going to be a bestseller.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:My definition of coaching and the definition of coaching that I use in my executive coaching work and also at our coach training school, ICLI Rising, says that I relate to you as naturally resourceful. I relate to you as not someone who is broken that needs to be fixed. So when you hire me as your executive coach or as your life coach, you're hiring me to support you with advancing the ball. I am an American football fan. I just say American football because my family is Jamaican and they say football is something else.
Speaker 2:Right, right, hold on. We got to stop for a second. Shout out to the yard man, the yard man. Yeah, we got to give it up for him Come on.
Speaker 3:So I have to clarify American football. So a big fan and a big part of American football says that you will advance the ball 10 yards, another 10 yards, another 10 yards, and so my job as your executive coach, your life coach, as your executive life coach, is to support you with advancing the ball. You get to say what the goal is. You get to say what the goal is. You get to say what the ball is. I am there to support you. Now, if you give me permission, we have an agreement from time to time I also can give you a little bit of telling you what to do, but that's only because you gave me permission.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So it's pretty much advice. You can take it or leave it. You know what I mean. It's like I can kind of give you some advice on what to do, but not tell you what to do.
Speaker 3:Yes, and the thing about the our, our, our version of coaching is that I'm actually not going to go to advice giving right away. I'm not. I'm going to save that at the bottom of my toolbox. My toolbox is click, click. She's so clear and cute, she's all blinged out. So I'm digging to my blinged out toolbox, but advice giving is way at the bottom.
Speaker 3:So what's on top of that? What's before that? Waiting for CJ to tell me what it is that he wants out of his life? Waiting for Andre to actually come up with some ideas of what resources he can tap into to actually advance that ball to get what he wants. Before I go and pull out, hey, I think you should do this. Hey, I actually used to be a manager and this is what I did back when I was a manager. So and I struggle with that in the beginning of my coaching career I've been a certified coach for over a decade and I struggled because I was a consultant and I also was a director of HR. We told people what to do, like that was my thought. So it was a big, big mindset shift for me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so yeah, coach, coach, lady and mentor the words that are like thrown around. You know like. You know, everybody's not a lady. You know what? The words that are thrown around? Everybody's not a lady. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Lady is different, you can see it when it comes to the door, and I like to add on king and queen as well. That's it.
Speaker 1:That's a term that's thrown around to everybody yeah, we're from New York, so everybody's calling each other king and queen.
Speaker 2:You ain't the king.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I said I was going to step on some toes, y'all.
Speaker 2:This is what we do. You got to call it what it is. So let's talk about the journey that got you from A to B. So, like you started off, you said you was a manager and all. So what was the shift that said you know what? I'm going to go ahead and go in this direction and open up my business and have my business be this, Basically trying to say Sophia, tell the audience who you are.
Speaker 3:That got you where you are right now. Well, I am the way that I came into this work. I actually was doing coaching. I worked for the federal government. My longest stint was at the White House. We won't name which president and vice president, but anyway I worked at the White House for a while and then my longest stint was at the I got to tell you.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry there's so many questions I got.
Speaker 1:You was on the other team, yeah you was on the other team. You was on the other team.
Speaker 3:I did not say that. No no no, actually, I do not mind sharing. I was a former director of First Impressions that's the title that was given to me and I worked for the Clinton Gore campaign, specifically for Al Gore, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, all right, I thought you were talking about that I thought you were talking about my foot. I was about to say whoa, what are we doing with this? What is it? 45y, five or whatever, four or five, but go ahead, I'm sorry. I mean I interrupt you. I can share that.
Speaker 3:I was doing coaching, but it wasn't called that. The coaching industry is still relatively young it's only about 30 years old and I just didn't know that that's what I was doing. And then a sorority sister Shout out to Delta Sigma Theta was doing. And then a sorority sister shout out to Delta Sigma Theta. A sorority sister shared with me that she had made some like serious changes in her life and I could actually tell like something was different about her. I was like what are you doing? There's something different about you. I could just tell that she had a more positive outlook related to her life and she said, oh, I've been working with a coach and I'm like what, who she's like? Well, you should just talk to him.
Speaker 3:I got on a call with her coach and literally 10 minutes into the conversation, I was like you're hired. Because I was blown away by how, with his support, I was able to like to hone in on my issues, my barriers, what was stopping me, my self-saboteurs, like literally in minutes. And I was like, okay, I want to try this out some more. And then that coach introduced me to coach training, invited me to a coach training program, in-person coach training program where I got to actually observe coach training students coaching being coached. 30 minutes into that observation I turned to him and whispered how do I sign up, how do I enroll? And I literally paid sixteen thousand five hundred dollars to enroll that day in coach training and I went to a year long coach training program in the wonderful state of New York.
Speaker 2:Nice Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:No cool. So let me ask, because you know, um, if I come to you, let's just say, like we'll walk through a session, like, say, I'll come to you and I say, all right, sophia, you know, I want to I don't know be an astronaut, I don't know, I'm just throwing something out there, all right, how would you, how would you interact with a client in terms of you know, this is the goal that they're trying to achieve and what would you say? What would you say in terms of this is what you need to do to get there?
Speaker 3:I appreciate you asking that because a lot of coaches and I'm like I'm a straight shooter, okay so a lot of untrained coaches what they would do is, right away, start, probably start sweating because they may not know anything about becoming an astronaut, but they will start sweating, start thinking about what can I tell him, what advice could I give him, trying to think of a plan? But because of my definition of coaching, where I relate to you as perfectly capable and whole and complete, I would just ask you a lot of questions about that dream, that goal. Why is it important to you to become an astronaut? So I'd want to know a lot more about you, why that's important to you, what your why is around that? Well, before I get into offering you any advice and in fact in our first conversation I probably wouldn't offer any advice whatsoever Just listen to the person and just see where they.
Speaker 2:Do you have those people that their goals just seem like. I don't know. If I'm like a, like you know 120 pound guy coming to say I want to be a professional wrestler. I mean, like do you got to tell them?
Speaker 3:I don't know if that's gonna work out you know that that can get sticky, you can get challenging. Um, in the beginning of my coaching career, um, I did make some missteps and and I would um qualify or or invalidate people's goals because I would look at their dreams through the filters of my fears. Someone came to me and said, oh, I want to do this grandiose thing. I was looking and judging, if you will, their goal through my experiences, through my fears, through what I thought was possible, and thank goodness for formal coach training that taught me not to do that, or at least to turn down the volume on that and just hear from them how they feel. Do they feel it's possible? And even if they feel it's impossible, what would have them relate to it as more possible than not?
Speaker 3:So, as a coach, you're never going to hear me say to a client what are you talking about? Willis, you can't be that. You want to be an Amazon number one bestseller who would come out as number one on Amazon. You know how many books are on Amazon. You want to be number one and you've never written a book. You don't even know what you want to write the book about. You still will not hear me say that is not a valid goal for you to have.
Speaker 1:You have to pack up the books on somebody and just say, listen, I can't help you.
Speaker 3:There have been times I have said that, Andre, but you know-.
Speaker 1:Just close the folder on them.
Speaker 3:That's it. Like I'm sorry, Let me give you my business.
Speaker 3:Let me give you my business colleagues card. Yeah, there have been a few times where the conversation has gone that way, and but those times it was mostly because the people were relating to coaching as therapy. So they were coming to me thinking my job as a coach was to support them around healing things that happened in the past and that is not my lane. And so and I don't just, I don't just kick them out, of course, I still support them even right then and say I will tell them like hey, it sounds like this is more in the therapeutic or counseling lane. I actually have some recommendations to some therapists or counselors. If you're willing, I'm happy to share that with you.
Speaker 1:So you did a. What about Bob? You just transferred over to another person.
Speaker 3:Here's my business card?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. Is his business card? Yeah, yeah. So that's deep, because I know a lot of people. They hear these things, like I say, all the time. You hear it but you don't know exactly what it is that you're getting into. So it's always smart to ask these questions. You know what I mean and even on your side of what you can and cannot deal with, you know what you're qualified to deal with or not In that training. Do you work with any type of therapists?
Speaker 3:you know that say, well, this is some techniques that you could use, and all to help your clients. Absolutely so in our coach training program. Well, we have several coach training programs, but in all of them I typically have a counselor or a therapist. We have a couple of them on our staff. I have them come in and do a module, a training module, around what therapy is, what is counseling, what types of ways do they actually support clients? And in my training I'm one of the lead facilitators. I do a whole module on what coaching is and what coaching is not, and how is coaching and what we do different than what a therapist does, different than what a mentor does.
Speaker 3:I get confused all the time with what we do, a mentor and how is it different from a consultant and what a consultant does. And I've heard time and time again the light bulbs that go off when we do this training are so loud like you can literally hear. You know the students like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So wait a minute. So I don't have to understand or know a whole lot or be an expert in counseling If the client brings up some type of counseling topic. No, it's not your job, it's not your lane, and what I hear oftentimes a lot of the epiphanies that our students get is they then start to figure out. Their job as coach is a lot easier than they thought it was. Coach is a lot easier than they thought it was.
Speaker 2:It's a lot easier because they don't have to be the expert and they don't have to perform. And you know, something that you say interesting was I didn't realize, until you actually said it, how many categories there are mentors, counselors, consultants. You know it's like wow, I've never really thought about how many lanes there are it's a lot of.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of carpetbagging in that field yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:It is because it's like you know some people like you're sitting there looking at them, like, like you don't, like I'm looking at you and I'm hearing all the accolades and different things that come along with you. So I mean then I can sit back and say, all right, she's successful, I can listen to her. You know I mean. But then I can sit back and say, all right, she's successful, I can listen to her. You know what I mean. But then there's other people that you're looking at like, come on, man, like I got the same thing you got. I mean I can't take advice. Well, I guess you can take advice from anybody, but you know, I mean I'm not going to pay you to coach me, you know, and you're not doing much better than I am.
Speaker 2:I mean first, it's just like they say about like drug counselors. They say that how can you be a drug counselor if you've never been on drugs?
Speaker 3:You know, how can you, how can you connect, and I imagine that there are still ways you know. Under, as you said, there's still value or benefit that you can get from folks. But what I want from a coach is I don't need for my coach to have weathered all the storms that I've weathered in order to support me around weathering my own, but I do need my coach to have weathered some storms, or at least a storm is exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So now, if we go on to a other space of that, like I know, this is just, like you know, you might be career guidance on this. But what about everyday life? Like you know, living, if I could say, the best life you can possibly live, living in your authentic self um, tell us about that. Like you have people that come and ask you well, you know, sophia, this is, you know, not more or less like career driven goals, but this is what I'm trying to achieve in life. You know, out of my life, what are examples of that that you can give our audience, because we have a lot of people that you know might come to you for that as well.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what I? What I've noticed over, you know, all these years I've been doing this work, is a lot of times people come to coaching because they actually don't believe they can have what they want. Why am I getting emotional?
Speaker 2:Uh-oh hold on. Are you about to cry on this microphone?
Speaker 3:I felt something.
Speaker 1:Okay, don't do that. We'll make a meme out of you, man.
Speaker 3:I've been looking for a freelancer to make some.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of times they come and they actually don't really believe they can have what it is they want, and they're coming to a coach or another paraprofessional to validate or to give them permission to have what they want. And so in my work with my clients, I support them first of all on getting clear, clear about what you want. And a lot of times people will not even allow themselves to dream that big because their context is it's never worked before or their context is well, I came from this certain neighborhood and that just doesn't happen in my environment. So how is it that I could possibly do this or be this? And one of the things that's that's most helpful in the work that we do is to just allow the client to first of all dream.
Speaker 3:Can you dream Like if there was nothing holding you back? Money's not an object, resources, nothing. What is it that you want? And I've been really fascinated with how much people struggle over actually articulating that right, because a lot of times they've been told they can't have it. I mean, I was raised in South Central LA. Shout out what's up.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, hold on, she's the real deal, folks.
Speaker 1:That's the other American Vietnam. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:On the other side, you know, don't have this cool experience, don't have this cool experience. So back then, if I had gone to a coach and a coach asked me what it is I want to do or who is it that I want to be in this world, my realm of possibility probably would have been very small. Well, actually many times it was. But you know, thank goodness for a praying grandmother, thank goodness for praying grandmother, thank goodness for having people in my life that taught me you are in this environment, but you're not of this environment, so you actually can do something even outside this environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do experience that a lot with clients who come to me and also coaching students who come to me and who don't believe that they could support somebody in having what they really desire. What happens when that person that you're coaching, like they just don't do the work? Like how do you get them to get on track?
Speaker 2:and do what they have to do.
Speaker 3:Seeing that, look right there, yeah you saw me laughing right there, saw that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:What I have heard myself say a lot in some coaching sessions, especially when they're checking me out. We're just now starting, maybe I'm doing a sample coaching session with them so they can try me out. I also say to them I'm checking you out too, because not everybody is my client, and I also say oftentimes I can't want your dream more than you do.
Speaker 2:Please say that again.
Speaker 3:I can't, I cannot want your dream more than you do. Exactly, I want your dream more than you do. Guess who's doing the work? I'm doing the work, I'm doing the heavy lifting and you know, one of my favorite things is that, that easy button. You know you push it and says that was easy, that's how I want to live my life. You know you push it and says that was easy, that's how I want to live my life. I want my personal and my professional life to be easy. So it wouldn't be an easy life, an easy career as a coach if I am like holding on and striving and grinding so that your dream can become reality and you sitting over there and you're not doing the work. And so what I suggest that our coaching students do and coaches that I mentor, is that may not be the time for that person to really invest in coaching. Yeah, just may not be the time, or I may not be the coach for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the same thing that Brian was saying when we interviewed him is that, you know, it might not have been that particular time for that person?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and so you just got to hold off, I guess, and wait and see what they do.
Speaker 1:You know, or they?
Speaker 2:can wait and see what they want to do.
Speaker 1:That's kind of deep because that's I mean I come from a spiritual background, so I kind of look at that like church. You know what I mean. Like you know, like you can talk somebody into you know, like yo, this is what we should do and this is God and this is the scriptures and things like that. But until they actually want to come in, you know and do the work themselves, then it's until you know, it's on them, bottom line, it's on them basically, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know what the famous quote is I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make him drink. That's right. So, as a coach, I can support you and get into the water, but I can't control whether or not you drink or not. And here's the thing that I share with coaching students a lot is don't be so quick to give up on people. Also, let's say that person, given the scenario, andre, that you just gave, like they're not really committed. They're kind of kicking the can every week, you know, every coaching session. They still haven't done all the things they said they were going to do.
Speaker 3:I don't necessarily throw in the towel on them, but I start getting curious and asking them questions and maybe even making a reflection to them about what I noticed. Hey, sharon, I noticed that you have been talking about starting your road of dating. You've been talking about it for the last four coaching sessions. How many dates have you been on? Zero. What got in the way, right? I didn't expect to do a little coaching demo here, but here we go. Yeah, what got in the way of you not having what it is that you said you were committed to? Right? So I didn't tell her what to do. All I did was reflect what I see.
Speaker 2:That's right, kind of like a soft calling to the carpet of your foolishness.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, I hear you Exactly, most people don't believe work brings success. You know what I mean. Like I think most people think, like it happened to you by accident, like things got better by accident. You know, I say that because I think I was one of those people at one time, like even like me starting out at church and I remember seeing like people with good families and you know, um, I'm seeing brother, sister and they daughter and they son and they go into church together and they have a family and I'm thinking like man, I would like to have that. You know. I mean like, how do I go about doing that, you know, and uh, getting better in my life and stuff like that. So, but again, things got better for me. You know I what I mean, because I did some work.
Speaker 2:Because you did the work.
Speaker 3:Yeah right. But a lot of people don't believe it works, the work works. Oh my God. You know that was one of my first hashtags.
Speaker 2:Really For years. Wow, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I better go trademark that though. You should yeah. Hold on hold. On hold on.
Speaker 2:I might have a career in this thing Coaching the coach. What's wrong with you? That's right.
Speaker 1:I done saved a lot of undesirables in my life. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:You got to do the work. The work works and it does. It's, it works it works.
Speaker 2:So how fulfilling is that for you, like as a as a person, when you see the success you know um, the success of one of your clients, you know and you sit back and you're looking like, wow, I remember when you came in and you were this way. Now you walking, walk in that way. Well, how do you feel personally?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. I can tell you all that I am clear that the work I do Is God ordained and I was purposed to do this work because sometimes I literally feel like you know, I don't always share this with a whole lot of people because people are like you're weird, which that's okay. It sometimes feels like an out-of-body experience when I'm literally in that coaching session and even coach training. When I'm training and I'm talking to these coaches and I'm training them around, dwelling in possibility, and I see them go from here like, oh, there's no way, I'm not good enough, I'm not going to be a strong enough coach to by the time they graduate and they're like I can coach anybody, right? It is an out-of-body experience to see people actually get an epiphany or get awareness that they are the cause of what they have or don't have in their lives.
Speaker 3:And they actually have some stake in the ground, they have control, a lot of control over what they actually have in their life, or they don't see Like they have that it is. It is, I'm addicted to it. I'll put it that way yeah, I'm addicted now and helping people?
Speaker 2:do you find a little piece of yourself and a lot of your clients like, say, sometimes you'd be talking to yourself?
Speaker 3:every single one, every single client, and the majority of my clients are don't look like me.
Speaker 3:A lot of them don't look like me because I work with a lot of C-suite executives, mostly in the IT arena. A lot of times they don't look like me and it's still an out of body experience to even see these people, these executives who have this. This definition of what it means to be a CEO or what it means to be the senior VP is this way. I must show up. This way. I can't show up as my authentic self, because this is what it looks like to be a C-suite executive, To see them go from that mindset and swing the pendulum all the way the other way and actually get this awareness that they can actually still be successful as a C-suite executive while being themselves.
Speaker 3:See, when I was in corporate, I didn't have that relationship. I was told, especially being a Black woman in corporate America also. You have to be this way. You cannot go into this corporation being your authentic self, and many times, many years, I wasn't, I wasn't. So you say, how does it feel? It feels darn good, it feels great to work for myself too, so that I can show up as my authentic self. Speaking of that, I had someone say to me you got to stop showing up the way you're showing up on social media. One moment you're twerking or dancing or having a good time and the next moment you're on a mic speaking to 150,000 people. Those corporations are not going to hire you by you being your playful self. And what I said to her, to my colleague, is the corporations that hire me and I'm proud I have a whole list the corporations who hire me. They know me, they know who I am. They're hiring my authentic self.
Speaker 2:They're hiring you.
Speaker 3:They're hiring me and those that don't, because they judge me and say, oh my gosh, she's too much energy, she's too much of this or too much of that. She's talking about that anointed stuff I will never know, Right, cause they won't hire me. How would I ever know? So I'm going to, I'm going to bet and keep banking on being my authentic self and working with those companies.
Speaker 2:So let me ask what are some tips you can give our listeners in terms of being your authentic self and doing the work Like? What are a few tips without giving away the store, Cause I know you still got a business to run.
Speaker 3:Well, I will. I will first say to compare us to despair, to compare us to despair, to compare is to despair. Stop looking on social media for who you should be and how you should show up in a space. Stop comparing yourself with those people. Those people are not you, they were not giving your unique gifts and talents. So to compare to despair, sometimes I have to come off of you know, don't watch the news, don't go on social media and remind myself of who I am and that my unique gifts, that I am enough. Secondly, I also would encourage people to get more information about their saboteurs and the way that they self-sabotage.
Speaker 3:How do you sabotage yourself from being your highest and greatest selves? And it can show up in so many different ways, so many different ways. And in our coach training school we do a lot of work, a lot of training of the coaching students on how to support clients around their saboteurs when their saboteurs get really loud and when their inner critics are saying girl, who do you think you are? Well, you want a promotion. Do you feel like you just started this job and now you're talking about being a senior manager? Right, we have tools and we train them to use tools and I use tools all the time in my work to support that client with maybe taking a look and seeing there might be a different way. Or those self-saboteurs that are talking in my ear. They may not be truthful. They may not be truthful. So get to know more about your unique gifts and get to more, get to know more about your barriers and how you may self-sabotage, and then I'll say and share that with your coach Okay, so the coach can hold you accountable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the coach can hold you accountable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the coach can hold you accountable that's very important.
Speaker 1:I think that's pretty much it says like you got to get rid of your a lot of times. You got to get rid of your surroundings, like you got to start all over, you know, I mean, and like get the people around you that are going the same direction that you're going, you know andre, I tell you that has been a.
Speaker 3:How do I say this? I've been on that journey for a while. Um, I started to notice that I was surrounding myself with, with people who were not necessarily where I wanted to be, but it was safe to be surrounded by those people. Here we go. I'm totally outing myself now. It was safe to be around.
Speaker 1:That's all of us. What you're about to say is all of us pretty much, Thank you. It's the people you love. You feel comfortable around. You know what I mean, but they're not going the same way you're going.
Speaker 3:They're not going, they're not rowing in the same direction. And what I discovered not just in coaching, but also in therapy I'm a big, big supporter of therapy and coaching working together in tandem what I discovered is I kept surrounding myself with those type of people because it made it easier for me to put my light under a bushel, it made it easier for me to downplay my gifts because I felt uncomfortable standing out from the crowd. So why don't I just keep standing in this crowd and not standing out? And then I came to the point in my life where I'm like I'm not this anymore, like I have some goals, I have some things. You know, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't want this, I want this life.
Speaker 3:And I got a lot of support, you know, from my coaches. I have more than one therapist my clergy from around surrounding myself with people whose lives I wanted to emulate. I wanted what they have Right, I wanted to experience what they were experiencing. And it's been tough. Like I said, I'm still on the journey. I'm still on the journey. I'm still doing some house cleaning.
Speaker 2:Aren't we all.
Speaker 1:That's never ending.
Speaker 2:That's never ending. Yeah, that's never going to stop.
Speaker 3:Never ending.
Speaker 2:So let me talk about your books here. So you are a published author, don't?
Speaker 3:think I wasn't going to touch on that.
Speaker 2:All right, so yeah, so you have what? How many books so far?
Speaker 3:I now have eight books and I'm working on the ninth. Yeah, eight time publisher.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you have one that says Fierce and Vulnerable, a Colored Girl's Truth, trials and Triumphs and that debuted.
Speaker 3:That's my favorite.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you which one out of the eight was your favorite, I'll say all eight of them.
Speaker 3:But that is a favorite of mine because to me, that fierce vulnerability book could be the poster for the work that I do as a coach. So here I am. I didn't even consider myself a writer, didn't like to write, but I was given a direct download and I know your listeners. Many can relate to what that means. I was given a direct download to go put this story in a book and I'm like wait a minute.
Speaker 3:So, first of all, not only do I not like to write, I don't feel like I'm great as a writer and I definitely can't write fiction. But you want me to go write a fiction book and I did it. I did it. I said I will be obedient and I took the stories of a lot of the women that I have surrounded myself with and I took a lot of my own story and I created these four black women and I put it down on paper. And I kid you not, when I published that book on Amazon, it went to the number one slot, the number one new release for books by women and plays by women overnight.
Speaker 2:Nice, yeah, I was. I was just looking at that, wow, and it's. You know, for a person I've never aspired to write. I never thought that this is a but see, you're a victim of your own success, because it's the same thing that you deal with your clients is that you might think it's unachievable but it's there, the whole time.
Speaker 2:You're just helping to pull it out a little bit right. So also, too, you also have Ease and Flow, a 31-day journal to clear and connected and courageous. Clear, connected and courageous about life. To get clear and collected. Clear, collected and courageous about life. Aside from writing tongue twisters, I mean, how was that experience writing that book for you? See, but it helps you remember because you got to keep saying it over and over. Yeah, you got to keep saying it over and over.
Speaker 3:You got to keep saying it over and over. Well, I will tell you that that journal that was my very first book. Actually, same thing, divine, download, go write this journal, go create this journal. That journal was actually created in the hospital, while I was sitting in a recliner and my husband was in the hospital bed having, uh, just recovered from his first brain surgery. My husband, um, unfortunately, um encountered a stroke and then a brain tumor was discovered. I will say he's doing great. He's doing great, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I love journaling already, so I would always journal. But in that space and time of my life I just like looking at a blank page to journal. I'm like I don't even know where to start. I had so many emotions. Can you imagine so many things going on? I'm like what am I supposed to write? And I said you know, that doesn't work. I need something else.
Speaker 3:And the direct download I got was go create what you need right now. Go create what you need. And I'm like, okay, well, I need a book that's going to ask me some questions, at least to get me started, maybe some journal prompts or something. I need a book that's going to ask me some questions, at least to get me started, maybe some journal prompts or something. I need a book that's going to ask me, that's going to remind me of who I am. You know a place for me to write down every day who I am, because in this environment of dealing with a hundred medical professionals who are telling me that this ain't looking good like, I need people to remind me. I need myself to be able to remind me.
Speaker 3:And so from that I created this journal, literally sitting in the hospital recliner and called a graphic designer. I said here's my idea. I know it sounds cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I just need you to go, take this and make it look like a book had never written a book, done anything. And she said, sophia, I'm going to go one step further. But she didn't do this work either. She said I'm going to go one step further. I'm actually going to hold your hand and you and I are going to figure out how to self-publish this journal on Amazon. And it became an Amazon bestseller in less than two weeks.
Speaker 3:Wow in less than two weeks.
Speaker 2:Wow, oh, look at this.
Speaker 1:Listen. I had a horrible life that turned around too.
Speaker 2:I need to write me something. Man, that's the thing you do.
Speaker 1:But not to say you had a horrible life. But we come from you know humble beginnings and stuff like that Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had experiences.
Speaker 3:Yeah experiences we had experiences and that's the piece you all asked me earlier about the authenticity piece. That is what people want. They want to know that they are not so different than you. They want to know that you can relate to them and resonate with you, know their fears and their accomplishments and things that stop them. They want to know you're real.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then coming to a person like yourself is just wonderful, like you said, in the real part of it it's like, you know, if I'm looking at you and I'm walking in a door and I haven't experienced what you experienced, it's going to be hard for me to say to you I can't do this and I can't do that, when I'm talking to you and you've done so much, you know, coming from your circumstances, you know.
Speaker 3:Yes and absolutely. And it's like you know, if you're walking in the door and I'm supposed to trust you and I'm supposed to hire you, in order to hire you I have to be able to trust you. And the best way for me to learn or to see that I can trust you is by you being yourself, by you being yourself. And you know, I just want to, I want to relieve so many coaches like there are hundreds of thousands of coaches on this planet and when I see them on the internet, social media, like sometimes I literally just I'm in pain for them because they're working so hard, because they have the concept that they have to be perfect.
Speaker 3:Not only do I have to have weathered what you, the concept that they have to be perfect, not only do I have to have weathered what you weathered, I have to have come out on the side of perfection and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to scream it from the rooftops. No, they do want you to have some expertise, but, most importantly, they want to know that you are comfortable enough, even sharing that your weather the store right. That you're not Right, I tell you. It makes my job easy. I was so grateful when I finally learned that in coach training that I didn't have to be perfect, didn't have to be perfect, but I can still support people.
Speaker 2:You can still support people. So there's nothing wrong with that and it's good because, like you say, you can you learn it from them as well as they learn it from you, and you know, I guess, a part of you grows every time you sit down and you talk to somebody. It's like I can see some of myself in you yeah.
Speaker 3:And I don't have to perform because you know I have one client. Of course, I can't give away the confidences, but let's just say this client is the equivalent of like the third or fourth person in command at Hewlett Packard. I'm just making this up Right? I know how to turn on my computer and turn it off. You see I'm having technical difficulties. So I am not an IT specialist, IT specialist what I shared with him when we first started working together. I said I want to be clear I am not an IT expert, have no desire to be one. However, I do have a little bit of experience with the industry that you're in because I used to be the director of HR for very large IT organizations. So I know how to hire you people, but I am not an expert on mainframes. I don't even know what that means. And I'm saying this to him as we're starting beginning to work together to make it clear and to level, set expectations around the work that I do. I'm not coming in here as an IT expert. I'm coming here as an expert in coaching and is supporting you with having what it is that you wanted, and I'm so grateful that I do get the opportunity to work with a lot of executives and I think the reason that they keep coming back and they refer me is because of my willingness to say I am not an expert in your industry. I'm not.
Speaker 3:And those folks that you see out there on the internet no shade to the coaches. First of all, you, a coach, you get snaps from me, but a lot of the coaches you see on the internet they are actually consultants. As a consultant, I am an expert in a certain area, so I actually wear a hat as a consultant as well. When people hire me as a consultant, I better be an expert. They're expecting me to come in and, you know, re-engineer some processes for them. They're hiring me as a consultant, as a trainer, to come in and do some type of professional development training with their teams. I better know something, but as a coach, I don't have to be an expert in that field. Right, that's the biggest difference, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right and I think they come back to because of the balance. Like you have like a quality where it's like you're down to earth, you're very professional, but you're down to earth and you know you make things in layman terms, whereas you know we can sit down and you know you're very professional, but you're down to earth and you know you make things in layman's terms, whereas you know we can sit down and you know you're one of those people that have that very strange quality, whereas, like you can, you know, I used to say this about Malcolm X Malcolm X can stand in front of an audience of people and he can speak to the gutter person on the corner and he can speak to a college you know college grad and they both got, you know this wonderful, you know wonderful information. You know what I mean. So I think you have that kind of quality, yeah.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate that and you know, in the past I wouldn't have been even been able to receive what you just said, andre oh yeah, go ahead, because I Tell me why, tell me why. Because I didn't relate to myself as who you just described, right, but because of the power of work, as you said earlier, doing the work, the work works because I've done so much work over here, right, I can hear that and not only hear it, I can hear it and receive it. And I also agree with you.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you know a lot of times, like you said a lot of times, people may not take it as a compliment, but you know it's just kind of like. You know I don't want to say you're my grandmother, nothing crazy like that. But when I speak, when I when I'm, what I'm about to say is like my grandmother can speak to the funeral director in our family. She can speak to, you know, the jailbird. She can speak to the person you know that got several degrees and she can make them all feel like you know they're five year olds. You know what I mean and they can take some information. So that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:And then she has a very she's a very powerful person and she doesn't even have. You know, you know the education, that you know most of the people that you know in our family that she talks to.
Speaker 3:And she doesn't have to because she is being her authentic self and using her God given gifts, right, right, she probably doesn't have to work hard to inspire people and have people keep coming back to her. They have to work hard to inspire people and have people keep coming back to her, right? My grandmother was a minister and she owned restaurants and there would be lines wrapped around her building for people waiting, not just for her food. Her food was great. It was great, granny. Thank you, her food was great. But they were wrapped around the building to just have a few minutes to come and talk to her, for the very reason you just described, because she didn't judge them. She could relate to anyone. So you have politicians coming in all the way to somebody who was homeless and she could relate to every single person.
Speaker 2:So you have some good space, sophia, so I'm grateful.
Speaker 3:So I'm grateful. I think I got that from her, that's good, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:All right. So before we wrap, it's two things. I want you to let everybody know where they can reach you, where they can get your books, which I'm going to put all this in the description folks, the website, the books and everything. But again, I'm not going to tell you a story. So let everybody know. Let everybody know where they can reach you, how they can get your books. You know, hire you for speaking engagements? Go ahead and let it rip, sophia.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. So I'm on LinkedIn as Sophia Casey. You can always find me there. Most places is going to say Sophia Casey MCC, which stands for master certified coach, cause I'm always going to put that acronym behind my name, cause I'm proud of that. There aren't many that look like me and there are only 2,100 of us in the world, so you're always going to see Sophia Casey MCC. And then I would. I have three companies, but I would direct them to our coach training school, which is, I see, li Rising dot com, and there they can find all the things, all the things about OK, and also can you impart some type of on our audience, some type of encouraging words?
Speaker 2:Words of wisdom, something that you can, you know that you don't mind letting it go for free on this one.
Speaker 3:I don't mind.
Speaker 3:I don't mind giving away some freebies.
Speaker 3:So what I would say is you know a lot of times what comes up in coaching conversations and the work that I do is around people not being in relationship or good relationships with their coworkers, colleagues, their managers, their boo bae honeysuckles Right.
Speaker 3:And one of the quotes that I was given years and years ago literally transformed the way that I relate to people, especially when you're in a conflict or something and in these political times we probably all in conflict type of conversations, and that quote is you can be right or you can be in relationship. You can be in relationship. You can be right or you can be in relationship, and what that means in a nutshell, which one are you committed to? Are you committed to this relationship and being connected with this person heart to heart, soul to soul, or are you more committed to being right? And so when I ask myself that and I'm in a conflict or some type of tough conversation if I vote for I'm committed to the relationship, I probably would say things differently to that other person. On the other end, I probably would show up differently.
Speaker 2:That's a good one. Right there, it definitely is Alright. So if you walk through your life and never helped anybody, then you haven't lived fred hampton, and I say that because obviously, sophia, you've helped a lot of people in your work, all right, and I want you to continue, or we want you to continue to keep doing that, all right.
Speaker 3:So, with that being said, you know you always got an open platform here.
Speaker 2:Anytime you want to come on and you know, discuss, next time you publish a book you come on and yeah.
Speaker 3:I would love that. Thank you, I love talking to you all. It's, it's ease and flow.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's how it's supposed to be. I got to applaud that before.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:All right. So, with that being said, folks, I'm going to go ahead and let you get our handles. Thank you once again, sophia Casey, mcc. All right, the only one my podcast is available on all major platforms to stream your podcast on. All right, the Only One Mic Podcast is available on all major platforms to stream your podcasts on. Also, check out our Only One Mic Podcast YouTube channel to watch the past and current episodes, and please don't forget to rate the show and subscribe folks. Also check us out on Instagram and Twitter at TheOnlyOneMicP1. Facebook and LinkedIn at TheOnlyOneMicPodcast. Facebook and LinkedIn at the Only One Mike Podcast. You can email us at theonlyonemike00 at gmailcom or call us with your comments and questions at 302-367-7219. And we might even play it on the show.
Speaker 2:We thank you once again for your time, sophia Casey. Continue this wonderful work, thank you. Thank you. Thank you All right, and we encourage you, the listener, to speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant, because they too have their story to tell. So until next time, please keep in mind if you never had to run from the Ku Klux Klan, then you shouldn't have to run from a black man. Peace.
Speaker 1:Peace, peace.
Speaker 3:I love it.