Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Join Edge as he shares his 30+ years of experience in leather, kink, and BDSM. Each episode centers around a theme, explored through several segments. In the first, Edge shares his leather journey in relation to that theme in order to draw some larger lessons about the leather community. In the second segment, the focus is on practical knowledge and history. Then, we speak with another member of the community who shares their knowledge and experience in relation to the theme. Occasionally, there will also be bonus segments, like erotic story time or kink centered meditation. Come learn more about leather, kink, and BDSM with Edge.
Full Cow: Edge Talks Leather and Kink
Interlude: Leather Life Coach
Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. This time it's my foray into leather life coaching.
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather kink and BDSM. My name is Edge, my pronouns are he, him, and I'm your host. And this, of course, is another interlude the episode between episodes, offered raw and unedited, but with Langlitz, leather creaking. And for those of you who follow the podcast closely, you might notice that this interlude is out of place. Normally, the first Friday of the month, I release a full episode and then an interlude two weeks later, but since it's the end of the year and the next episode is actually the season finale, I thought it'd be even better to have it closer to New Year's Eve. In fact, I may do it very probably later than the usual schedule. So one of the things I wanted to share and talk about in this interlude is my newest exploration, which is leather life coaching.
Speaker 1:I am, as I said in my socials, exploring the leather life coaching space and, wow, that's been really interesting. It started because of essentially anxiety. I have a lot of anxiety about the future right now the economy. Where's the economy going to go? I don't have a lot of confidence about the economy, so in part, I've been trying to pull back on my spending a little bit, but I also started thinking, wow, it'd be nice to have just a little extra money as a little cushion. And I was at the gym one morning thinking, oh, I should, maybe I could do Uber Eats or maybe I could deliver for Amazon. And then it just sort of struck me I could do leather life coaching. That's something that I had explored. Well, I explored life coaching with a career coach I'd worked with and it's something I've talked about with my therapist and it just intuitively felt like such a good fit for me, and so I was like, oh, this is the time to do it. So it's logistically complicated not the actual doing of it, but the setting it up. I spent quite a bit of time finding a scheduling software that would sync with my multiple calendars, and so I finally set up some available slots, and then I did a little quick video on Instagram and on blue sky and on Twitter, and the goal was to, just since I am I'm exploring this space, I was going to take 10 people and you get a free consultation 20 minutes long, and then, if you decide to work with me, you would get a 25% discount off my usual rate of $50 an hour. So that would cost people $37.50 an hour.
Speaker 1:I posted this and very quickly the response to it was remarkable. It kind of surprised me In some ways. It surprised me, but I had 10 people within a couple of hours and I ended up actually taking 15 and then shutting it off, and that's again. I'm exploring this. I don't know that. I know what I'm doing now that I've done five consultations so far and all these people, I'm like oh, I know the exact answer you're looking for. So I do know what I'm doing, but the actual doing of it is complicated and that has that has meant I've already moved to another scheduling system, because the first one wasn't really ideal. Now I'm using Acuity, which really seems very good for my needs. It's part of the square space environment. It meant I needed to go get a domain name set up, email put together, a rough website right, and then eventually it will mean figuring out payments.
Speaker 1:So the plan is generate a little extra income, help people everybody wins. So I've got these 15 people that I'm doing consultations with and then we'll see how many decide to work with me. For as long as they choose to work with me, they will get my guaranteed rate of $37.50 per one hour Zoom session. Eventually they will move off because they've achieved their goals, and as they drop off I will take a pause because if this is working, if this seems workable, if people move from consultation to coaching and start paying, and then if that is successful and I know I can do it and I know people value it then I'm going to stop, step back just a little bit and set up the whole actual business of it Get an LLC, talk to lawyers, talk to my accountant, get an EIN, all the thingy things, and then as part of that also do credit card processing, like the whole official, official stuff, and then I'm going to open up for business.
Speaker 1:The goal is to always stay pretty limited with no more than 10 to 15 clients, and when I do reopen or open I guess this is a soft opening when I have my hard opening, 10 to 15 clients will be at $50 an hour, $50 per session, same thing, right. As they drop off, the next batch comes in at $60 an hour and then the batch after that we raise it a little bit more. And we raise it a little bit more as they drop off. The next batch comes in at $60 an hour and then the batch after that we raise a little bit more, and we raise a little bit more. I don't know quite where I'll stop. I want to find what the pain point is. What will the market bear? I also want to be really cognizant of the kind of people who are coming to me for help and what economic resources they may have available to them. So I imagine I might give discounts for people who are just starting or facing economic hardships. I'm not here to be evil capitalist, but at the same time I am here to coach, and that's the plan.
Speaker 1:The plan is 15 people for a test and then move into business and slowly circulate through clients until I reach a price that makes sense to everyone, makes sense to them and makes sense to me. And originally I thought, oh, this is just going to be. Essentially I'm trying to pay for my personal trainer. That's really what it comes down to. You know, I had this thing with my mortgage. My mortgage is going up because I got reclassified as being in a flood zone and even though I'm on the second floor, I need to get flood insurance. And my mortgage company is making me get flood insurance. So then they're like you can use the condo flood insurance. So I got the condo flood insurance and I uploaded it and then the mortgage company thought I had to pay that for every year. So they thought I was paying $3,000 every year. So then my escrow went up. So then my mortgage craziness. But my mortgage payment went up and I might have to give up my personal trainer. I am fully shamefully not shamefully fully embarrassingly cognizant of what a ridiculous luxury problem I'm describing. But the point is I started this leather life coaching to make a few extra bucks so that, essentially, I could keep my personal trainer. But it's opened up another possible possible dream and that is acquiring mobility.
Speaker 1:Right now I have a great, fantastic job, but I'm very much stuck in Florida. Now, where I am in Florida, in Walton Manors, which is extraordinarily gay, it's not a bad place to be stuck, especially right now. The weather right now is stunning outside, like dips into the high 50s overnight, so it's nice and crisp and cool During the day. It's in the 70s. It's great weather. Now is the time to live in Florida.
Speaker 1:So if I have to be stuck somewhere, florida is a good place to be stuck, but I think I want to be able to move somewhere else if I choose, and it's not even about the political environment. It's really about if I find a partner who lives in another city, which is my pattern. I tend to because of my interest in leather and kink. My local pool is very small, so I tend to date people in other cities, and then the logistics of us living together never work out. We never get to that, and right now it would mean making someone move to Florida. Well, okay, but I want the option of moving to someone. Should I choose? Beyond that, there is the possibility of leaving this country being a digital nomad. So the goal is, if this takes off for now, pay for a personal trainer, but if I can really grow this as a business, that I'm getting very close. I'm about one year away from early retirement, so I could draw a little bit from my retirement.
Speaker 1:Do my leather life coaching be anywhere in the world? While I'm doing that and that is a beautiful, beautiful dream of mine of people who are coming to me and the different sorts of issues they have and I'm really again it's sort of like, oh, I feel like I'm doing these 20-minute consultations and I feel like, oh, I can solve your problem, here's the answer, like I could just give it to them and I do sort of talk about. Well, here are the things we can work on, but part of what I'm struggling with is I'm so used to giving it away that I'm struggling to value my time, knowledge and experience and actually charge for it. And again, that's really complicated because so much of the podcast and the socials is about giving away what I know. I've been very intentional about not generating a lot of income off the podcast or off the socials, but that is my way of giving back to my community. But that doesn't mean that I can't also charge for my time, and I think the way, so I'm having to wrap my head around charging for my time. That's really what it comes down to, that if I'm going to be this leather life coach, then what they're really paying for is my time and a lot of what I'm sharing. If people spent days scrolling back through my Twitter or my Instagram, they might find videos that would give them exactly what they need. But these people ideally, if this works out are paying to have my utterly focused attention for one hour where all of my knowledge and all of my experience and all of my resources are available to them, specifically to them specifically to their situation, versus watching a video that maybe kind of speaks to them. A video that maybe kind of speaks to them. So that's the business model and it's been interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm doing these tests of 15 people and as part of that I need to really figure out what I'm calling oh my God, I'm such a business person now the conversion rate. So if I have 15 consultations, how many of those will become paying clients? I don't know. I don't know. How many sessions does an average client use? I don't know. I'm going to find out. Do they find the coaching sessions valuable? I don't know. I'm going to find out. What am I going to do when I run into people who don't pay Because I think that could be coming right? Inevitably someone I going to do. When I run into people who don't pay Because I think that could be coming right, inevitably someone's going to not pay. And then what do I do about that? And the nice thing is that for now, this isn't my income, this is my personal trainer money. So if they don't pay, it's like all right, lesson learned. But there's just so much around forming this as a business that I'm thinking about and playing through my mind quite a bit.
Speaker 1:I will say, if you're curious, the website is in. Just I threw something together on Squarespace but I did find there's. You know there was this explosion of top level domains, that's. You know there used to be comneteduedu, gov, org, and that was sort of it. Now there's anything, there's a coach, so I got a coach domain name and it's a really simple website and then it primarily is the scheduling and that was kind of fun. I love, you know, I love getting immersed in a kind of project and this has been a kind of project for me. Um, if you're listening to this, you're obviously too late to sign up for the free consultations, for now to get in on the ground floor, but I imagine I will be letting people know across all of my media outlets, including the podcast, instagram, blue Sky and Twitter, that if this takes off, I will open that up and we'll see. You know I would really like to and we'll see you know I would really like to.
Speaker 1:It's been my dream for a while to not be stuck in Florida, to be able to move for joy, for comfort, for safety and for love, and this is my best path to that that I know today. So I'm very excited for it. I'm excited to help people, but you know, I try to help people as much as I can, as often as I can and in many ways as I can, in as many venues as I can. This is going to be something different. I don't even know what this is going to be for me, emotionally, cognitively.
Speaker 1:What's it like for me again to charge for my time, to also recognize that my time has value in these spaces, that while I will continue to give away in the podcast, in the socials, I will continue to give away, but is it okay for me to charge? Like really wrapping my head around that? It's part of the long-term plan, right? So we've got the 15 test people and we stop. We set up a whole business, we go forward, we start gathering clients, we raise the rates until we find the rate that's right for everyone. Then I will actually probably also do some actual life coach training, which isn't cheap and also which is not required. I've seen a lot of posts on Reddit, which is where you go to find the truth of things, where it's like you know what? I had a life coaching certificate. No one has ever asked me for my certificate, so you can just do it. If you know what you're doing, we'll see. There's a lot, a lot a lot to be learned in this, and I'm sharing this part of it with you right now.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's going on in case you've not been on all the socials is I will be teaching at Austin Kink Weekend. I am teaching a class on protocol and I am hosting a leather social and I am going to be there. That's very exciting. Austin Kink Weekend seemed to grow very quickly. One year, as far as I know, it didn't exist. The next year I kind of heard about it. The next year everyone I knew was going. So it's been growing really rapidly and I'm excited to partake in that. And then the last thing I'll share with you is a little update from my last interlude, and that is how I'm really crafting my resistance in this new political world that I live in.
Speaker 1:And I have started wearing leather more often out. Like I was having cigars with a friend tonight. It was a little cool. I'm like I'm wearing leather. I was having dinner with a friend on Friday. It was a little chilly. I said I'm wearing leather. So I am becoming more visible as a leather person and I feel empowered to do that. This life coach, leather, life coach thing also makes me want to live in my leather a little bit more on a daily basis, and so that's a good thing. Thank you, as always, for listening. That was a little rambly, but we'll see how the leather life coaching goes. I'm excited to see whoever's going to be at Austin Weekend in April. I will see you there, and if you see me out and about, there's a better chance you'll be seeing me in leather. And next time we'll have the season finale, which isn't going to be two weeks from today, it's probably going to be later in the month, so I can really well, mostly so I can get all the data. Until then, I hope everyone is doing exquisitely well.