Episode 184: From Overwhelm To Agency with guest, Gloria Custodio

“I don’t have a choice” sounds like a conclusion, but we hear it as a signal flare. When clients are stressed, overwhelmed, or worn down by decision fatigue, their options can collapse into a painful binary, and their confidence goes with it. I sit down with Social Leadership Coach, Gloria Custodio, to map what actually helps in those moments, not motivational talk, but clear coaching moves that bring people back to agency.

We dig into what to listen for first: the real constraints that must be acknowledged, the assumptions quietly shaping the story, and the values that can act like a compass when everything feels noisy. Gloria explains why choice works better as a spectrum of small steps, and how “experiments” can replace the pressure to make a perfect, permanent decision. We talk about practical tests that create learning and momentum, from tiny career actions to something as simple as sitting with an option and noticing what the body says.

We also go to the tender place: regret. Gloria offers a grounded reframe that helps clients stop treating a past choice like a verdict and start using it as a teacher. From there, we widen the lens to coach presence, co-regulation, and what to do when a client’s situation or the news triggers our own reactions. If you want stronger coaching conversations around decision-making, values-based leadership, and overwhelm, you’ll leave with language and approaches you can use right away.

Subscribe, share this with a coach or leader who’s carrying too many decisions, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one small choice you can make today that moves you toward what matters most?

Watch the full interview by clicking here. 

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Gloria here.

If today’s conversation resonates with you, Gloria has created a free companion workbook: Choosing What Matters: A Deep Reflection Workbook for Coaches. It invites coaches to explore their own relationship with choice through guided reflection. The workbook includes five sections of writing prompts that examine the language we use around decisions, patterns that shape our choices, the values guiding our work, and what we may be ready to choose next in our practice. It also includes a values alignment check, a decision-making pattern inventory, and a short practice audit covering areas such as pricing, client boundaries, and how we communicate about our work.

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

Transcript

Meet Gloria And The Article

Garry Schleifer 0:07

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and as always, I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest article, have a chat with this brilliant author again. Thank you very much, and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you get a chance, join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques, and just make a real difference in our clients' lives because that's what we love to do. Remember, this is your go-to resource for all things coaching. In the meantime, let's dive into today's podcast. In today's episode, I'm speaking with social leadership coach Gloria Custodio, who's the author of an article in our latest issue, The Power of Choice. Her article is entitled Choosing What Matters: Coaching Conversations That Empower Decisions. A little bit about Gloria. She holds a PCC with ICF, is a Social Leadership Coach with a multifaceted career spanning law, business, education, and nonprofit leadership. She's been a federal judicial law clerk, a million-dollar retail business owner, a university instructor, a classroom teacher, and a school administrator. As a PCC, she's a trained transformational coach. She helps leaders navigate complexity, drive impact, and lead with purpose. She's passionate about equity, inclusion, and social change. She empowers individuals and organizations to grow and thrive on their own terms. Gloria, thank you so much for joining me again. Welcome back.

Gloria Custodio 1:55

Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Why Choice Feels Hard Now

Garry Schleifer 1:59

I am thrilled that you keep writing for us and don't stop. No guarantees every time, but we'll do our best. What called you to write for us this time, this topic of choice?

Gloria Custodio 2:13

Well, as you know, because I think we've talked about this before, when I go on your website to look at what's coming up in the articles, and I used to do that before I started writing, by the way, just because this is the way I like to think. I like to think in topics. So I went and I looked at the description for choice and the topic of how people make decisions, particularly in moments when they are stressed. And right now we are all under stress and we feel overwhelmed. And it called to me how do we, in a coaching conversation, help our clients sort of take steps beyond the overwhelm? And the thinking of it's too much, nothing I do matters. How do we get them to see that they do have agency and that what they do day to day actually does make an impact in themselves and each other and in then therefore in the world?

Garry Schleifer 3:21

Yeah. You know, great pointing to what's going on in the world these days and how busy things are. I'm currently working on the Chaos issue, and it goes in line with this choice issue because there are just so many decisions to be made now, and and just when you make one decision, something changes, and you have to either remake a decision or make a new decision. And you're like, Well, it's like it's almost like one might have a decision fatigue after a while.

Gloria Custodio 3:56

Definitely, yes, yes, definitely. It it does.

Garry Schleifer 3:58

One of the most common things that my clients say is that I don't have a choice. And when you hear that phrase in coaching conversations, what do you listen for first?

Gloria Custodio 4:11

Well, I remind myself to be really curious. Because when they're when they say that, it's really to me, it's like the bat signal. You know, I don't have a choice. It's like okay, this we really need to pay attention. And there are several different things that I listen for. And one is it what's the real constraint? Because we can't just cover up that there are real constraints in life, that there are financial constraints, there are relational constraints, and there are systemic constraints, and acknowledging those is important because you don't want to shift the client too quickly from acceptance of their situation to what are we gonna do about it. Secondly, I look for and probe curiously about what are the assumptions, right? What is the mindset underneath? Because if you feel really stuck, there are assumptions underlying that, whether it's that the consequences of the choice are things that you don't want to live with, or you know, that other people might not accept it. What is it? What's that assumption? And then of course, what I think is probably the most transformative is what are the values that are underneath this? What is really important to this person? And I think that values piece is what allows us to unlock the agency.

Choice As A Spectrum Of Steps

Garry Schleifer 5:51

Yeah. Well, and that's what we're going for, is that they have agency in the matter at hand, whether it be the big decision or smaller decisions. I'll point our listeners to what you reminded when you said values. You put a wonderful part, sidebar in the article, five doorways into empowered choice. And one of those is the values door, like you just mentioned. So thank you for that reminder. And I love to say all the time, you always have the power of choice. Nobody says it has to be a big choice, but you always have some sort of choice. So it could be the awareness around your values, the understanding of what your limitations are, what your mindset is. Those can be choices too, along with the awareness is looking for the the clues.

Gloria Custodio 6:41

Definitely. And that brings up also that sometimes clients think that they need to make the perfect decision. And the decision is between one thing or another, right?

Garry Schleifer 6:56

Yeah, yeah.

Gloria Custodio 6:57

Well then it's sort of our our job or our ability, really, our capacity to help them see that choice is not a binary, it's not this thing or that thing, but it is really a spectrum made up of little choices along the way. And that opens up possibilities, particularly for people who are overwhelmed, if they can see that choice can be, you know, a spectrum and it can be an experiment. You can try things out, you don't need to be committed to, you know, well, I hate my job. I'm gonna leave. There are many, many other possibilities. You can explore other jobs, you can, you know, work with ways to make your job better in all different ways. You can expand your skills so that you can do something else, but it's not just, you know, I'm just gonna leave because I hate my job. Yeah, or I'm going to do nothing because I can't, I'm stuck here. You know, there's a wealth of possible things that you can try out between those two.

Garry Schleifer 8:14

It's not just one or the other, it's not just the yes version or the no version. You you remind me of my training 25 years ago now, with the wheel of life. And what that offered was options or possibilities of realms to work in, not necessarily different choices, but in a sense, it was eight or ten choices. Where would you like to work now? But it's only after reflection and some thought around what's most important, and the name choice for me, my recollection was that choice came after reviewing a whole bunch of possibilities, right?

Gloria Custodio 8:55

Exactly. You need a buffet of possible actions so that you can exercise your in the way that is most useful.

Garry Schleifer 9:09

Yeah. Well, and another point you made in the article is that choices don't have to be permanent decisions. That goes back to the conversation about experiments. How does that shift the way clients approach differ difficult decisions, knowing that this not doesn't have to be permanent?

Gloria Custodio 9:26

Well, a lot of clients are what the perfect thing, right? They think that a choice is a one and done deal. You know, I make this choice, keep with the keep with the job analogy. It's like I leave this job, that's it's over and done.

Garry Schleifer 9:50

Right.

Experiments Over Perfect Decisions

Gloria Custodio 9:51

But it isn't. So when you make sure that you give them or help them see that choices really are opportunities to try things out and to get learning from those things, to get data, how you do with that, it opens up because then they're not feeling fearing failure. Or feeling stuck, like if I make the wrong decision, everything is gonna fall apart and people will hate me, and I you know I'll be homeless and I won't have anything. And no, it's like just let's what is the smallest single thing that you can try to test out whether this choice is a good thing for you? Yeah, and and it also makes them more creative because then they're looking at the little things that make up the big choice and seeing okay, I might not be ready to do the leap because I'm still too afraid, or I still don't I want it to be perfect, but I can try this smaller thing. I can try, for example, to update my LinkedIn if it's a job thing, or to take a class if I'm you know want to make a hobby my job, that sort of thing.

Garry Schleifer 11:22

Yeah, you know. Yeah, I love that breaking it down into pieces and testing it. And some of the good choices can be just reflective things, like I choose to stop and reflect or to work out what that might look like in the long run, right? What that what are the outcomes of the different possibilities is is also a choice.

Gloria Custodio 11:46

And sometimes the experiment is just to sit with the idea or the image that you have of what that choice will pan out to, and pay attention to what your body is telling you. Because a lot of the times our clients are very stuck in their heads. And this is one thing that my transformational coaching training program really stressed is like see where the client is, meet them there, but help them shift different domains. So if they're stuck in their head, help them feel their body, if they're really reactive and just all in their emotions, then help them think about it logically. And that has stuck with me. I think experiments are a good way of getting them to explore these areas that might not come to them the most naturally.

Turning Regret Into Learning

Garry Schleifer 12:46

That's a good point. Yeah. What about coach clients look back at past choices with regret? What happens when someone moves from I chose wrong to I learned something important about myself? Tell me more about that scenario.

Gloria Custodio 13:06

So a lot of the times people get stuck in, you know, I just made this horrible decision and it turned out so badly, and now I'm stuck with it, and I don't want to choose anything else because what if I mess up again?

Garry Schleifer 13:26

Yeah.

Gloria Custodio 13:28

They're just like that's where they are, and they can't see anything else. And then the conversation for me is I'm always curious about what led them to choose that in the first place. So that's something that I actually sometimes ask about. It's like what knowledge did you have at that time to make that choice so that they understand that you know hindsight is 2020. You make choices with the knowledge that you have at the time that you make the choice, and so sometimes that opens up so they can see better that you know at the time they made the best decision they could. That's one that's another way. Another way is to affirm, well, you now see that this is a bad decision, but that decision then can teach you because it it's sort of like the Buddhist thing of don't waste the suffering. So don't waste a bad decision. What can this decision teach you? And what is it trying to tell you about yourself, about the situation, about how you make decisions, and then about what you value so that they can let go of the judgment and use the decision as a teacher, and that also opens up their ability to make decisions in the future. You're less scared if you don't fear that judgment.

Garry Schleifer 15:11

Well, I will quote you from your article: a past choice is not a verdict, it's a teacher. And for our listeners, I was just recording a podcast with another author, Kim DeYoung, where there was an example of someone who dug back into their past during the coaching to reveal that they were not making decisions because of a bad decision. Wasn't even directly related, but it was a decision that's obviously stuck in the back of her mind and held her from making decisions in the here and now.

Gloria Custodio 15:47

So that's you're held you're held hostage, basically.

Garry Schleifer 15:51

You're holding yourself hostage.

Gloria Custodio 15:56

Yeah, no, so that's part of what we help clients do. Notice when those things are holding them back and help them to make friends with it and then be able to release it.

Garry Schleifer 16:11

Make friends with it, I like that. I like that.

Gloria Custodio 16:13

Yeah, I'm a lot about acceptance. So, you know, accept that you made a decision that didn't turn out well, yeah. You know, not the end of the world, and it can open up empathy, it can open up wisdom, and compassion, you know, and all those are good things to bring into the world, yeah. And it all starts with us, right?

Garry Schleifer 16:41

Well, you know, one of the great things again about coaching, I know we're speaking to the you know, but is that, and I'm learning this too from working, reading the chaos issue, how we come to the conversation has a big impact on how the client works from our energy, from our groundedness, and how important that is for us to come to our calls clear, ready, calm, and grounded. And I'm reading that sense from you and from the article as well.

Gloria Custodio 17:20

Yes, I really strongly believe that coaching is relational. That, and I'm thinking about this as I'm I'm working on an article for the presence issue. Thinking about, you know, a lot of the times we think it's the coach, how the coach shows up that determines what happens in the coaching session, but that's just part of it. We co-regulate with the client. And particularly, yes, and particularly when clients are talking about decisions that they've made, we need to be really aware of whether that's triggering on us judgments about our own decisions, and you know, to make sure to stop and remind ourselves that decisions really are not permanent and that they teach us about ourselves and each other, but just to stop and know that when a client brings something up that is upsetting to us, particularly you know, the chaos that's going on around in the world, if it triggers us, then we are going into our own stuff and we can't be we're less present for them. So it's it's doing the work of understanding what those triggers are and how you're gonna manage when inevitably, because it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how many years you've done, it doesn't matter, you know, there will be a time when you're triggered in uh in a session. And what do you do to notice and to help yourself sort of step off the ledge and back come back down? Yeah, you know, yes, so that you can be there for the client and help them regulate and help them step down from the ledge as well.

Garry Schleifer 19:23

Yes, how many times I've been in a coaching conversation, and all of a sudden they say something and it'll be like, Well, that's just like me, and I'm no no-no, and it's like, okay, back, come on back, come on back. Yes, you know, our clients have lives that are not dissimilar to ours in a lot of circumstances or our desires or you know, dreams. So, and we're such dreamers and and uh learners and that sort of thing, that yeah, we could easily get hooked into a into a conversation. So good point get grounded and come on back.

Gloria Custodio 19:58

Yeah, particularly when a client is talking about a difficult conversation, difficult subject or something that that sparked in them from the news or something, and then you also get flooded with what you know from the news, and then you can go into that space where you might with a friend be like, Oh my god, yes, this is horrible. This is, but that's not the the coaching space is not the place for that, yeah. So it's you know, being kind to yourself and saying, Okay, yeah, I recognize the impulse to do that, yeah. But you know, what does this mean for the client? And why you know, be curious about why the client is bringing it up? What is it that they need from you in that moment? And then if you still need to at the end, then you could call your own friend and sort of you know dump on them, yeah, right?

Garry Schleifer 21:02

You save your time for others, but you're right, there are times when the client just needs to vent and be heard. I mean, some of some, not all, but some of my I can remember some of my best coaching was unknown to me. I'll say at the end, so what are you leaving with today? And they're like, Oh my gosh, Garry, this was the most amazing conversation ever. If I got two words in during the whole session, I was lucky. And that's just what they needed. They needed that non-judgmental, confidential, safe space to just blurt it all out, get it all out of their system. And that might be another, you know, is that one of your doorways? Let me say awareness and reflection. Yeah, awareness and reflection, right? Yeah.

Gloria Custodio 21:52

Yeah. But you ask them what are you leaving with? One of my sort of signature questions is what are you more aware? Of now at the end of our conversation today than you were at the beginning. Oh, goodness. And I am almost always surprised.

Garry Schleifer 22:11

I know. You think you know what they're gonna say, and those darn clients come up with something entirely different that blows you away. And yeah, love my clients. Love, love, love. Love what I do, love my clients, love my job, but it's not a job, so I can't retire. And I won't.

Gloria Custodio 22:29

It's a vocation.

Garry Schleifer 22:31

Vocation, a calling. Garry, Garry, come coach me.

Coaching As Service In Chaos

Gloria Custodio 22:37

No, and in times of chaos and in times of uncertainty, particularly, you know, what do what do we do? Well, we coaches show up. Yeah. And that's important. Yeah. You know, can I stop the war? No. But I can show up and I can support people living their lives so that they're more resourced, so that they can take the small actions needed to make better choices for our countries and our world.

Garry Schleifer 23:11

Yeah. You know? I'm gonna quote you the last lines of your article. When clients begin to trust their compass, they reclaim voice, alignment, and belonging to themselves. And in that reclamation, coaching becomes not just about solving problems, but about restoring confidence in the human capacity to live with intention. Beautiful.

Gloria Custodio 23:35

I believe that.

Garry Schleifer 23:37

I bet you do. I'll bet you do. Gloria, anything else you'd like to say that you couldn't get into the article? Going once, going twice?

Gloria Custodio 23:46

Yes, actually, yes. I made a sidebar about coaches to reflect on their own choices, and that obviously didn't make it because of size constraint. Yes. So what I made for listeners, basically, it's like a little workbook that expands on that idea. So it takes coaches through the dimensions of making choices and to think about their practice and helps sort of see choices as experiments themselves.

Garry Schleifer 24:29

Wow, what a good reclamation and return to getting it in there. Love it. And that's available with this recording, so just click in the box below and you can grab that. Thank you so much for making that work. What's the best way for people to reach you?

Gloria Custodio 24:50

So people can reach me through my LinkedIn, which is Gloria Custodio, and through our website, the Social Leadership Coach. And there we have all sorts of goodies, and you can just connect and build a better world.

Garry Schleifer 25:06

And that we would happen to be your sister.

Gloria Custodio 25:10

My sister, yes. We are partners, we are the social leadership coach, we are the coaching sisters. It's funny, that's how we're known in in Puerto Rico in the ICF. My sister was in the education board in ICF, and so she's a master coach. And now we work together since I retired school administration. So now we our project is basically to do what we can to make the world kinder, more compassionate, and particularly more joyous.

Garry Schleifer 25:50

So oh, love it. Love it.

Gloria Custodio 25:52

That is where you can find that project at the social leadership coach. Yes.

Garry Schleifer 25:57

Well, you can also read your sister's article in this issue, The Final Say. The last words in there. So thanks to you and to her for contributing to choice and making our coaching world a better place. Thank you.

Gloria Custodio 26:11

And thank you, Garry, because we love the magazine, by the way. It's always useful.

Garry Schleifer 26:16

Oh, thank you. I like to think so. I always choose things that are useful for me and hopefully for others. So when I hear that, it makes my heart sing. Thank you.

Gloria Custodio 26:26

Yeah, I always point people to it.

Subscribe And Choice Magazine Signup

Garry Schleifer 26:28

So awesome. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app, most likely the one that got you here. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine and you're watching this video, you can sign up for your free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top right corner of my screen. If you are listening and now in a safe space, you can go to -Choice Online.com and click the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.