EP35: Coaching and Ethics: A Candid Exchange with Marianne Smith (Daugherty)

Do you ever wonder why it's so hard for high achievers to shift their mindset? And why traditional mindset coaching methods aren't always the best approach to growth?

In this very candid episode, I talk to Marianne Smith (Daugherty), a psychotherapist and trauma trained therapist all about nervous system regulation and how dysregulation impacts high achieving entrepreneurs, CEOs, and founders.

Drawing from her 15+ years of experience, Marianne enlightens us about some incredible techniques to manage the pressures of success. We discuss polyvagal theory, exploring how different approaches can help high achievers thrive in their chosen fields.

We learn how to recognize states of dysregulation and why self-compassion is the cornerstone of maintaining balance. 

This leads to a very eye-opening exchange about the coaching industry, providing guidance on how to separate credible coaches from those who might not have your best interests at heart.

We close out the episode by addressing the elephant in the room - the glaring lack of checks and balances in the coaching industry. We share personal experiences and discuss the alarmingly easy route to becoming an unqualified coach. We break down the need for ethical standards of care in the coaching industry and the importance of research and scrutiny when choosing a coach, providing insights to help you ensure you're working with the very best. Tune in for an engaging conversation that promises to challenge the status quo.

Marianne Smith (Daugherty) is a psychotherapist, practitioner, and guide to high-achieving visionaries who are ready to ditch the chaos and lead from their inner zen master. She works privately and intimately with clients using cutting edge nervous system rewiring techniques, taking them on a multi-dimensional journey to uncover their next level calm. This process takes time, trust, and tools, but as a result, leaders can become infinitely resilient in the face of inevitable stress. If you’re ready to rewire your nervous system and carve new neural pathways for greater presence, creativity, and joy-in both your personal life and in your business.

Connect with Marianne:

• https://www.facebook.com/mariannelindausmith
• For coaching services: mldcoaching.co
• For psychotherapy services (in Ohio & Pa) www.happyvalleycounseling.net

Chapters

• 0:00 Nervous System Regulation and Coaching
• 14:11 Regulating the Nervous System in Business
• 22:28 Coaching Industry Certification and Oversight Issues
• 34:05 Ethics in Coaching
• 44:31 Raising Standards and Accountability in Coaching

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hi, welcome back. I'm trying something new. I'm trying something a little bit new. We're going to start doing guest bios before we dive into the episode, because I kind of felt like doing guest episode bios in the episode was a little bit awkward, because sometimes people are really uncomfortable to hear themselves spoken about in the third person. So I'm going to start introducing guests before we actually get to the guest, before we actually start talking to the guests, so that we can just kind of dive right into the conversation. And what a wonderful episode to start doing this with, because my guest this week is Miriam Smith.

Speaker 1: 1:04

She is a psychotherapist, a practitioner and a guide to high achieving visionaries who are ready to ditch the chaos and lead from their inner zen master. She works privately and intimately with clients using cutting edge nervous system rewiring techniques, taking them on a multi-dimensional journey to uncover their next level calm. The process takes time, trust and tools, but as a result, leaders can become infinitely resilient in the face of inevitable stress. Now this conversation is a really, really important one. We start off talking a little bit about nervous system regulation and all of the things that are involved in therapy and working with licensed professionals, and then we end with talking about the coaching industry as a whole, where we think things are going wrong, and we have a really, really candid discussion, which you know what? I'm not even going to preface it. I'll let you listen to it and you can tell me what you think when it's over. So buckle up. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Welcome to the Business Blast for Me podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit Business Blast for Me, let's do it. Okay, this conversation is going to be so much fun. We have been already talking for 20 minutes before we hit record and we've been trying to start and it's just been a shit show. But in like the best way, and you always know a conversation is going to be good when you're like, okay, okay, we got to start. We got to start because we were having, just like, the best conversations.

Speaker 1: 3:00

I am so, so pleased to welcome Marianne Smith. She is an incredible human being and a good friend, and the conversation today, I think, is one I've been looking forward to. This, this is one that is going to well. We're going to fuck shit up. Let's fuck shit up, marianne, let's do it. So welcome.

Speaker 2: 3:21

I'm a new grandma. I'm here for it.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Yay, awesome, okay. So before we start, I ask this to everybody what is your origin story Like? How did you come to do what you were doing? Now? Tell us a little bit about how it came to be.

Speaker 2: 3:37

So I mean, the older you get, the longer your origin story is. I feel like I've been through many versions of myself over the years. I mean the quickest way I could say it is I have always, always, always wanted to help people. I was the kid who would bring home much to my mother's just complete sugar in. I was the one who was always bringing home stray dogs.

Speaker 2: 4:03

And I was always the person who really felt deeply for kids who were like they, looked like they felt left out, and I was also bullied in grade school for a few years.

Speaker 2: 4:17

I've always been just really sensitive. So my father, who I have a complicated relationship with, is a minister and my mom and dad both really give a lot back to the community and people and so I was kind of raised with a little bit confusing, because my dad is a narcissist that's another show but he was also pretty abusive. But he was always there for other people maybe not for me, but other people. So I remember being as young as 12, wanting to be a therapist. I remember saying to people I'm going to be a therapist when I grow up and I'm going to change the world, kind of thing. That's sort of the story. And I went to college and took a year off to work actually in the field of social work to see if I liked it.

Speaker 2: 5:12

And then went to grad school and started off in nonprofit. So I didn't start off doing one-on-one psychotherapy but really grew into that and opened my own practice and I've had it for 15 years and five years ago moved into the coaching space, which has been a fucking journey, oh my God. And I'm a trauma therapist. I really, through the years of doing therapy for 30 years I really realized like a lot of these symptoms, like anxiety and depression, really are rooted in unprocessed trauma. So, the way that I am, I dove into EMDR certification, which is over two years of work, and I really try to stay current on clinical interventions and support because it's really important for me just to support clients at a high level and I'm doing that really with entrepreneurs, founder of CEOs as well. I'm doing a lot of nervous system work because we research. I'm a fan of research, research and not like internet research.

Speaker 2: 6:26

I'm doing a lot of polyvagal theory stuff and a lot of somatic work with people. The past five years I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs who made boatloads of money just crumble and just have broken breakdowns and my goal is to keep that from happening. I guess that's my origin story.

Speaker 1: 6:50

I love it and I mean there's so many nuggets, so many threads there. So I do want to talk a little bit about the coaching space, but I'm going to put a pin in that for right now, tell me a little bit more. So, like right now, you primarily work with, like you said, entrepreneurs, ceos, founders, people that are running their own businesses. There's two things I want to get your insights on, and the first is obviously nervous system regulation. First of all. What is it and why is it so important? Because we hear a lot about it. Like I hear a lot about my nervous system is regulated or it's dysregulated, but there's a lot of the term going on around.

Speaker 1: 7:27

It's a huge trend right now and I don't say that lightly, but it is so. Do you want to talk a little bit about nervous system regulation, what it is, why it's important and how it impacts an entrepreneur's ability to kind of show up and do the thing they need to do?

Speaker 2: 7:40

Yeah, so thank you for asking that. It's a little bit of a rabbit hole. For anybody out there who's interested in learning about nervous system stuff, I highly recommend Stephen Porges's abbreviated version of the Polyvagal Theory. His original work is just I mean, you're not going to want to get through it. So this is sort of like the I think it's called the pocket guide actually pocket guide. He is the creator or discoverer or whatever you want to call it, of the Polyvagal Theory and this really is like the arc of my clinical work. It's hard to explain, but you know it used to be that the gold standard was cognitive behavioral therapy, which in the coaching world is synonymous with mindset work. So think about what you're thinking about, notice your thoughts, change your thoughts, affirmations, all those things definitely has a place, but it has a lot of limitations and here's the thing like higher performers, very motivated people, high achieving people tend to actually be very analytical people.

Speaker 2: 8:48

They're already way in their heads right. Yeah, they're very self aware. Yes, so there's this like frustration when they're doing all the mindset work but it's not sticking. One of the reasons is because we feel emotion. We don't think emotion and there's so much going on in our bodies and there's this huge interplay between what we're thinking, how we're feeling, and it's really not. We used to think like okay, what we're thinking affects how we feel in our body, but there's constant communication through the vagus nerve, which is the 12th cranial nerve that runs both sides of our neck down to our intestines basically.

Speaker 2: 9:39

So there the polyvagal theory talks about if we have poor vagal tone. He's Stephen Porges has done a lot of research on this with autistic kids. Actually, we can have pretty poor vagal tone when we are like stressed all the time or feel activated. There are three basic nervous system states and there are mixed states as well. So for this talk we're talking about, like entrepreneurs, people have a lot of responsibility, a lot of balls in the air, a lot of full plate spinning. There will often be this mixed state of being very heavy sympathetic nervous system, which is a fight, freeze or flight state, mixed with what's called dorsal vagal. Dorsal vagal is the state of shutdown, dissociation, think like go, go, go, go, go go. Collapse for a day, right, yeah, this is my story as well, and I was so confused why this always would happen to me.

Speaker 1: 10:45

So I think a lot of people can relate to that. Yeah like high achievers yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Yes, yes, because I mean that go, go, go state and sympathetic is that the state of action, of doing does not like open loops, likes to finish things, but it's also the state of survival mode and many, many high achieving people, including myself, have lived in survival mode. Underneath that, and this is true for a lot of people. It's really like this, these adaptive responses to early trauma. So it's sort of this other layer, like this is how I find my worth. I get a pluses in school. I don't feel the love of my father, but he does approve of me. He gives me some love, or feels like love when it's attached to something, yes, when the teacher tells him that I'm doing a good job, that I'm a good student.

Speaker 2: 11:51

That's just an example, right, yeah, so the problem is when we are in either Doris O'Veigle, then to O'Veigle is the state of, it's the middle, it's the state of connection, social engagement, how we were really engaging with other people. We feel safe. It's the state of safety. So if we're heavy and sympathetic there, you might notice like heart racing some and, I think, anxiety, really shallow breathing, and the problem with being in that state all the time is, first of all, it's really hard on your body Over time and your frontal cortex, which is the place where, like higher level thinking, problem solving, you can see how things connect with each other. The place where the creation takes place, like creating things which is so important for entrepreneurs and CEOs and those people is offline. You're just trying to get through the day.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So this is why, when people are in a state like like for me, for example, I was away for a week well, 10 days, and I had been, like you said, in survival mode for seven months, like I didn't realize it until I took the time off, but I was literally in a constant state of stress and survival and I was beating myself up because I couldn't figure out, like why can I not make a simple decision, like I want to do this thing and I can't figure out how to do this thing, and I took the time off and I really kind of let go. There's a lot that was outside of my control, but I let go, I relaxed, I came back and literally started having like brainwave after brainwave after brainwave of who idea, who idea. I see how this connects, I see it and I like built out an entire offer suite in the last two days that I've been trying to push for seven months but couldn't do because I was so overwhelmed with stress, and that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 13:47

It's pretty amazing that you like got back there, though like these things are happening at an unconscious level. So one of the very first things I do with clients is what's called nervous system mapping, and there are certain thoughts that are related to each nervous system state. So it sounds like you really were in that mixed state. What you just said about can somebody what did you say? But I have to make just one more decision. That's a very dorsal, vagal thought like oh my God, can't somebody just I don't know what to eat for dinner, just pick a thing, exactly.

Speaker 2: 14:28

Exactly, and then it kind of like swings to the other side where, like, I have to do something, I have to like start. You know I'm going to try. But it's like this kind of vicious cycle and it's really great that you noticed and it's so cool that you notice, when you were able to release some of that, ideas started coming to you. That's when you know your, your cortex is online, is when you're able to see the bigger picture of things. Like when you're offline, you're just focused on the minute, sort of make one decision, the next and so, and that's okay. There's just really the first level of this work is really about awareness. Yeah, and a lot of people will say to me, like you said, oh my God, I've been living in this state for so long and there are a lot of messages, especially online, about the way that we should be doing things or the way we should think about things, and I just love messaging around. Just do it your own way.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Yeah, but that that can be hard If you've never experienced or seen or if you don't have a reference point. You know what I mean. Like I'm, yeah, yeah, I'm very privileged and I own the privilege in having had a diverse background in my career. I've worked for, you know, big organizations like I, have the the benefit of experience and exposure to a variety of things and training. Not everybody has that, particularly in entrepreneurship, and I see a lot of people who are and I only say this because I've, you know, I've been exposed to people who work in a similar field to yourself and obviously also you know, knowing you and and the work you do who are really dysregulated in a lot of their business practices and how they show up and what they do. And so how, like how does a business owner and entrepreneur, a recognize their their nervous system is dysregulated, dysregulated? How do they go about regulating it? Like, what are some of the tips that you would give someone?

Speaker 2: 16:36

is just noticing like how you're thinking, like that can be one of the first things that and that is a lot like kind of be reminiscing of mindset work, but just kind of being able to notice like I mean, I get in these different states too. It's normal, it's human. So when I'm noticing like I'm having thoughts like oh my God, I just wanna sleep for three days, or oh my God, I just want somebody else to do this for me and I couple this with other, like you know, I have an aura ring where I keep track of my sleep, like there are all these different things that go into energy optimization and nervous system work. But now I kind of know. So really it's about raising awareness and so if you're having like those kind of thoughts a lot, you're probably more in shutdown mode. If you're having thoughts like worry thoughts like what is my team member gonna think of me if I talk to her about the lackluster job she's been doing for the last month, is she going to? You know, is she going to think? I mean, what is you know my friend gonna think if I turn her down for coffee for the tons time in a row? Those kind of like worry thoughts oh, I need to get this done quicker, I'm not doing this fast enough. My to-do list feels like it's 10 miles long and I never get anywhere. Those are sympathetic thoughts, sympathetic nervous system thoughts. Those are thoughts that clue you into like you're in that kind of fight-free-flight-fund state. The dorsal is more like everything is okay, I am safe, everything's going well. These more connected, sort of more like calmer, basically more centered thoughts Like these are all the thoughts related to each nervous system state. So just noticing. So the first is just awareness, just even noticing where you are.

Speaker 2: 18:47

I also wanna say that most high achievers are extremely hard on themselves. Even though they don't recognize it, a lot of us do recognize it. But I know, when this was suggested to me, I don't know, 15 years ago, I was like what are you talking about? I'm not hard on myself, I'm probably not hard enough on myself, exactly yeah. And then I've evolved, thank God. But self-compassion is a massive shift for people. Self-compassion and the practice of it as it's presented by Kristen Neff. She has a fantastic book. There are three components to self-compassion and it really changed my life. And it's not just about like being kind to yourself. Of course that's part of it, but it is massive for high achievers, because we learned to achieve through beating up on ourselves and in my view, that's not sustainable and it doesn't create joy in your life. It just creates stress, right.

Speaker 1: 19:53

So kind of piggybacking off of that. My, I actually do wanna talk now about the coaching industry because I loved when you filled out the form to about what you wanted to talk about today and you said, and I quote you're not the typical mindset coach. And I love that for a number of reasons.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Number one because I had no idea what you were gonna say. That's a while ago and I filled that out.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Well it's. I love it because I know, like, I know what you stand for and also we've had conversations about some of the bullshit in the industry. Now I started. Well, okay, I got coaching training when I worked for a big corporation. I worked for one of the big four professional services firms. They trained me to be an executive business coach. I trained junior executives, you know leadership, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 20:46

And when I came into the online space, I was shocked to find how many people called themselves a coach. And this is what I'm about to say is very flippant If you're listening and you're like fuck you, sarah, that's cool. I found a lot of people were like, well, I don't know how to do anything else, particularly over COVID, when people were like coming online and really needing to work, I don't really know how to do anything else. So I'm gonna coach because it's easy, I don't have to have any training, I don't have to have any certifications and I know how to do with things. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna train other people to do that thing.

Speaker 1: 21:19

And you would see, because I came into the space as a coach and a VA long story, but the coaching piece when I started to see how people were using that term and how they were operating in the space as coaches, I very quickly did not want to call myself a coach. I very quickly distanced myself from that, because there's a very, very strong connotation with the word coach now, particularly in the online space, and I feel like a lot of people call themselves coaches because they don't really have any other viable business related skill set. Now, does that make me an asshole? Maybe Am I wrong? Probably not, because I think we've all experienced it. So I would love, first of all, your insights on, like, first of all, what makes you not a typical mindset coach. But I would love to know what you feel the coaching industry is getting wrong, because we've had conversations about this and I know you have some really good opinions.

Speaker 2: 22:22

Okay. So it's funny that you brought up the term coach. I've been thinking a lot about this lately and I'm really moving away from using that word as well, because I just don't think it captures what I do. I don't think it captures what you do. I don't know the word mentor, guide I like those words better Consultant it's the wild, wild West. I mean, it truly, truly is Even like International Coaching Federation. That's really the closest. I mean. The origins of that organization are interesting too.

Speaker 1: 23:02

You all can't see the face I just made, but I made a face.

Speaker 2: 23:08

I mean somebody just messaged me today saying, hey, do you have any recommendations for good coaching certifications? I said, hey, listen, like I can't vouch personally for any of them, if I didn't have the credentials that I do, I would probably get some certification. I would probably take a couple of years to vet them Because none of them have any kind of oversight or regulatory bodies either. There are a lot of really sketchy ICF approved certifications out there as well.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Oh, there were ads. There were ads last year in all of my social media $7. It's a weekend course, icf affiliated become a trained life coach. I'm like for $7, my coffee doesn't even anyway and you're messing with people's lives.

Speaker 2: 24:04

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I mean it's ironic too that I'm talking about this, because the reason why I came online is because I was just so frustrated with working as a psychotherapist within the medical framework here, like year seven, I stopped taking insurance, which that was challenging. I mean, therapy in the US is thought of, as you know, just health care, and so the insurance system in our country is insane in a different way than Canada is, I think, but equally as fucked up. And you know it's a system of sickness, not wellness, and it's frustrating. But as a professional who holds a license, I'm only allowed to help people who live in the state in which I have my license. So I have a license in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but it was very limiting. So I want you know that I can help somebody who lives in Guam just as much as I can help somebody who lives where I hold a license. So I really was attracted to this. Okay, well, that's not a rule in coaching, so I can do that and I think a lot of therapists are attracted to that.

Speaker 2: 25:23

And now, five years in, I kind of understand the need for not necessarily regulations, but some kind of checks and balances to protect consumers and to protect coaches. We are we. You know the industry is going through a lot of changes right now and we've seen class action lawsuits against big coaching names like Melanie Lair and a lot of other. We see, like the Life School, brook Castillo, that's having a moment right now with all the shit going on there and you know there really isn't any oversight. Now things are starting to happen, though, around, particularly how coaches market. There is legislation that has been introduced in New York because people are being scammed and the government is catching on. The FTC is catching on. Like, what are these people doing? Cause a lot of people don't even know about this bubble we live in. So there is definitely harm being done and it's hurting people.

Speaker 2: 26:32

And I get really really, I get really upset with the transformational space. I have personally been in masterminds where people have said things like well, I can resolve generational trauma in an hour. Well, no, fucking can't, cause that's not how it works and I probably will leave those places because I don't even want to be around that bullshit, because it's just not how it works and it is upsetting, and it's upsetting. It's upsetting me, but it's also upsetting if you're telling a client of yours, like, if the expectation is I'm going to like quote fix you and help you with your trauma in an hour and that doesn't happen which it's not Then the client blames themselves. You know they probably had enough of the shame guilt cycle.

Speaker 2: 27:28

So that is really concerning. People should not be allowed to say those things. So I said to this person who asked me I said I don't really know and I'm really sorry that I don't know, but I you know. I said just do your due diligence and look at who's teaching these programs, look at their education, their background. You know who they associate with. I mean, like I see off is very expensive.

Speaker 1: 27:58

Oh yeah, so 25, 30 grand a year, isn't it? It's a lot.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Yes, yeah, so just be really aware of who you're going to be. You know who's teaching you these things. And she also said you know, I noticed your content lately sounds like you're really upset that people are coaching without certifications. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, pointing out issues or problems doesn't really mean I'm upset, and I actually have never said that I think people should have coaching certifications. I don't even know, yeah, because I've never been in one of those certification programs, so I don't even know how complete they are, how incomplete they are. But if I had no experience whatsoever helping people resolve a certain problem, I maybe just resolved it myself, or myself in my own way, and decided to teach other people. I'm sorry, but that's not enough.

Speaker 1: 28:59

And that that's the thing that you see a lot of right. I think your point about calling out things that are quote unquote upsetting in this. I fucking get that all the time when I talk about how business has done, the number of people like your mindset is shit. It's like no, my mindset is fine, like I'm calling out business practices that are actually harmful and that are manipulative, and that doesn't mean my mindset is crap, right? So when you talk about mindset coaching, you know what what are you? What are you seeing versus how you do it?

Speaker 2: 29:30

I don't even call it mindset, like it. It just is a word that doesn't really mean anything. Like I love, you know, I understand the abundance mindset I. There's a great book on mindset I forget the author of it, but that I used to use with therapy clients a lot. To me, mindset is like I was saying earlier, it's basically just all cognitive. I'm not calling people out cause they're wrong or bad, but just for reference point. Brooke Castillo is very heavy on mindset, mel Robbins very heavy on mindset, which is great. There's nothing wrong with that. But we're, our brains, are connected to our bodies and our bodies give us way more information than our brains do, and in fact, the state of our nervous system really informs which stories in our heads and which thoughts we believe. So it does. It's not the other way around. And so to me, mindset coaching is basically like let's look at your mindset. Is it shit or not? What? How can we like look at your thinking and shift and look at it? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 30:51

It's a lot of abundance, it's a lot of belief system, it's a lot of, like you know, toxic positivity and and that kind of thing. I don't know that there's for for some people. I mean, there are there.

Speaker 2: 31:01

Obviously some people understand it a little bit more deeply than that, but the pop mindset coaches right, yeah, and if you look at backgrounds of a lot of people who call themselves mindset coaches, you're not going to see and people are probably hate me for saying this, but you're probably not, at least this is what I've seen too You're not going to see a lot of training and certifications and experience.

Speaker 1: 31:29

Just a lot of really good marketing.

Speaker 2: 31:32

Yeah, it's all about the marketing, isn't it? You know, like, I have mindset coaches, I'm connected to online and you know a lot of them make the ridiculous claims Like my DMs are open and I can solve any of your mindset problems in you know, a half hour. Like no, you can't. It's so much deeper than that. I mean the traumatic situations, traumatic experiences and it doesn't. Or an upsetting experience. They form our negative beliefs about ourselves. So if that doesn't get addressed and the reason why affirmations don't really work that well, the reason why just changing your thoughts about something doesn't really work that well, although it does have some impact, like because I do it myself it's because these beliefs are associated with experiences, past experiences, and a lot of times they're not conscious. So there's no way somebody, some stranger, is going to DM you and say you know I have a shitty mindset or I have a hard time receiving, can you help me with that?

Speaker 1: 32:53

And in 15 minutes, like I think a lot of it is, and I am being flippant when I say this just get over it. Right is kind of the one box and the other box is you don't want to bad enough.

Speaker 2: 33:06

So a lot of manipulation?

Speaker 1: 33:09

Yeah, I have experienced it personally from coaches you don't want it bad enough, so it's, it's. I'm washing my hands of it. You know it wasn't my fault, it wasn't my program or my failing. You didn't want it bad enough. You didn't work hard enough, you didn't believe in yourself, you were not committed enough. Yeah, you were not committed enough, and that's so, so dangerous. It's so manipulative.

Speaker 2: 33:35

And I will often think, because I personally, like I said, have experienced these things from coaches and I'm not available for that actually and what about all of the people who maybe are a little bit more unsure of themselves than I am right now, or like who really would take what you just said to me and internalize that?

Speaker 1: 34:01

Yeah, it was horrible. Yeah, well, I did Like. I remember when I first my first foray into the online space I mean, was it online? It kind of was. It was sort of when, you know, facebook had started out and MLMs were really big and I had an MLM upline who was a coach. That was their go-to. You don't want it bad enough, you're not trying hard enough, and you know it was. It was a health and wellness company and that shit did a number on my not only my confidence, but just my mental health. Yes, to the point where it took me six or seven years years to undo that damage.

Speaker 1: 34:37

And I'm not alone. There's a lot of people who are struggling with it. And for anybody listening who's like in the coaching space, we're not shitting on the industry. Like, by no means are we shitting on an entire, which I've been accused of in the past two years shitting on an entire industry. I'm not. I'm shitting on the people who are not doing it in an ethical way, who don't have a really clear understanding of what it takes to really support people from a mental health level or just even from like, not even just a mental health level, but just don't have the tools.

Speaker 1: 35:12

I think you know and are jumping on the mindset bandwagon because it's, quote unquote, the easiest thing to sell, because you don't necessarily need to have any kind of business skill, any kind of therapeutic skill or certification or licensing. Anybody can wake up tomorrow and call themselves a mindset coach and if their marketing and manipulation is good enough, they can do a number on people, sometimes even without really any kind of malicious intent. I don't believe that there are a lot of people who do this maliciously and intentionally. I think it's just, you know, they work through the mindset coach and, like you said earlier, they were taught a certain way of doing things and they perpetuate that way and it becomes less than ethical or helpful and so nobody's nobody's really setting out to do it in a in a way to intentionally hurt people. I just think that it's become so easy to call yourself that and so easy to practice in that way.

Speaker 2: 36:09

Yeah and no checks. And balances. Yeah, with a certain there's a lot of parodying.

Speaker 2: 36:13

that goes on in the space, and I've been guilty of it too, you know, just kind of repeating the same things and all the quit, the things that over and over again.

Speaker 2: 36:28

That really don't mean a whole lot. And part of this journey for me has been really just coming back to myself and because at first I was like questioning myself like this is weird that these people are all talking about masculine and feminine, and and and money, and I don't know. I think I have a pretty healthy relationship with money. I mean, we all have our own stuff and I definitely don't have a problem with commitment, because I've built a six figure business offline and I'm always there for my clients, but I don't know what now this guy's telling me on commitment issues, like what I don't know, I don't know they can really get in your head, but it's about them, it really is about them and and I had to really I have spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on my own coaching. You know, one of the reasons why I wanted to move online was because the overhead would be a lot less.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Yeah, Until you start investing in coaching.

Speaker 2: 37:34

I've been there too, yeah, yeah it's easy coach, and you know, the reality is that less than 1% of coaches make even a hundred K, and I'm talking even gross revenue. Yeah, but if you look at the messaging, everybody is making that much money. I raise you in the hundred K, monza, everybody you know, and it's just not true. It creates a lot of Financial instability for people. I mean, you just have to be very careful about who You're giving your money to. Yeah, I've learned some things the hard way and it's just been a big learning curve for me and I I don't want other people to experience the same things.

Speaker 2: 38:22

I've had one coach who you know I paid a lot of money to. A year later he kind of has this breakdown. A year later he starts coming online and is saying, like you know, yeah, I hit, you know, multi seven figures in my business, but I was miserable and I was this and I was that. He completely changed. It's like, wow, okay, like you know, do you think about your past clients and what they might be thinking about your new Messaging? And so we met up. We had a great conversation and I'm all about Plenicating and having conversations and you know he's young, he's like 27 years old, mm-hmm, he's finding himself. We're all going through our own journeys and I think you know, in a world where people see whatever we put out there and, yeah, we're gonna make judgments about things and people and this is how it happened to me.

Speaker 2: 39:23

But when you are, you know working with a coach and they're always talking about how miserable they are. You know how many struggles they're having, or that doesn't make you feel really good as the client.

Speaker 1: 39:38

Yeah. I mean, but there's a fine line between like vulnerability and the other thing.

Speaker 1: 39:46

Posturing and yeah like, like, like like curated vulnerability versus Authentic vulnerability, not for the purpose of like again, pain point marketing and things like that, but sharing your authentic journey, I don't. I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing the authentic journey, but then also being really aware of like, being self-aware enough to say, well, if I'm sharing this part of my journey, then does the other part that I'm sharing, you know, mesh with that, am I? Am I talking about my struggles on the one hand, but then also Using that manipulative paint point marketing and the I'm making six figure months and blah, blah, blah, because I think there's a lot of and, again, we're all susceptible to it. If you scroll back far enough of my Instagram, you can see that I did the same thing. Like I'm not standing on a soapbox here.

Speaker 1: 40:32

No you know, yeah, so We've been through it.

Speaker 2: 40:36

We understand it well, it's a beautiful thing to see, like the evolution of going through these things and of work and of of changing and growing. And Now a lot of us have been on social long enough. You can scroll back and see, you know, our cringe-worthy first videos.

Speaker 1: 41:00

What we're talking about, the evolution. You can see the evolution too and I think that I think maybe that's that's part of it too, like if you have a coach or Really anybody in the service provider space, that there has been no growth over several years, like you can't see some kind of evolution. Personally, I kind of feel like that's a bit of a red flag.

Speaker 2: 41:20

Yeah, I mean I was doing business coaching with therapists a couple years ago when COVID hit, because I. Really, there was a lot of panic and I really wanted to help therapists do what I had done and it was. It was great, a lot of it, but it wasn't my calling.

Speaker 2: 41:40

It's not my calling to, you know, help therapists figure out marketing and move online, and it was painful for me to admit that to myself. I had Programs and you know it was really hard to Just basically like pivot and close everything and I don't really sit with myself around. Do I still want to continue this online journey? Some days it's a resounding yes. Some days is like I don't not sure. You know, like everything they're ups and downs and you won't see me anymore. You know I'm never gonna be doing like stripe screenshots. I, I just that's just how I am. I just, you know, of course we have businesses and revenue is important, but it's just kind of gross to me, you guys can all send me Messages about how shitty my money mindset is.

Speaker 2: 42:42

It's okay, I've never liked that. It's never spoken to me. I think it's pretty gross the way some people do it, and that that coach I just referenced. I mean he used to do that all the time and he now talks about how gross it was. So yeah, it's like that's evolution.

Speaker 1: 43:01

That's growth, right, yeah, and and frankly, like, my bills get paid, so I'm quite at peace with my shitty money mindset. So it's, it's alright, you can say which, like I want to. I want to end on a really cool thing that you are a part of, and I would love for you to talk a little bit about Ethics for coaching.

Speaker 2: 43:19

Yeah, so this is a thanks for bringing that up. This is a grassroots initiative. We are all volunteers, we are a board. My friend, melissa Lapitas, who's a marriage and family therapist and also a coach I don't know if she calls herself that, but she's had, she's been online for years she's. She has trauma informed programs for coaches. She kind of spearheaded this thing over a year ago and so the the board is some attorneys, mental health professionals, business people I'm sure I'm forgetting like.

Speaker 2: 43:57

It's a really awesome group of people who have come together to basically help raise the standards in the coaching space, and this is for the protection of consumers and coaches and consultants, mentors, whatever you're, you know we call ourselves.

Speaker 2: 44:19

So far we've had one town hall where we had just we had about 90 people sign up. I think it was a really beautiful conversation around. You know, what we're even trying to do is very like early stages. So we have a five year plan. This is not right now. We're not even an actual business entity yet. You know, we're just in the early infancy stages. But you can go to ethicsforcoachingorg. We have a great handbook that's available for you to use Ethicsforcoachingorg. We have a great handbook that was put together for it's for coaches and consumers. It's a fantastic handbook. I can't take credit for it because I didn't do it but, it's awesome and get on our email list.

Speaker 2: 45:08

We have a newsletter, did you? Did you happen to see our newsletter that just came on?

Speaker 1: 45:12

I did. I saw it this morning. It was fantastic.

Speaker 2: 45:15

Oh my god, I was. I wasn't involved with that either. Margaret did that and it was. It was such a kick-ass newsletter. I yeah so blown away at how great it was. Thank you for that feedback. So that's pretty much what we're doing right now. It's just such early days. We want to get feedback from coaches.

Speaker 1: 45:35

We want to get feedback from.

Speaker 2: 45:38

I think there's a major reaction that we're noticing from coaches which I understand, around like we don't want to be regulated. You know we don't want this, we don't want that, but so much stuff has been going on, just shady stuff in the online world, and if you're not seeing the shifts, I mean you're maybe in, you know, a state in your nervous system where it's hard for you to see them, because things are really shifting and things are changing even from a legal perspective. So coaches need to protect themselves and a lot of them don't, and you know consumers need to protect themselves too.

Speaker 1: 46:19

Yeah, yeah. And I think that you know, if people are having knee jerk reactions like I, when we have conversations like this, it's really easy, particularly if you are a coach or in the coaching space, to feel like you know we're picking on you, we're coming at you, we're not. And I think that it's important to sort of state now if you, if you are a coach, odds are, you truly desire to help people, you really want to help people get better, be better, feel better, you want to help them be successful. Maybe regulation is not the answer. I don't know, I'm not, you know, that's not my forte, and I do think that some level of accountability is important so that at least the standard of care can be somewhat consistent across the board. It's not, I mean, it isn't, it isn't the same.

Speaker 1: 47:10

But when I was in corporate, I was heavily involved in the events industry and that was another industry when I lived in Europe. Anyway, that was not regulated. Everybody who is anybody could call themselves an event professional and you would see gross negligence on event sites. You would see, you know, and we actually had major event disasters, like people actually lost their lives, stages would collapse and you know, there was legislation introduced in the UK a number of years ago and I lived there and I was teaching there where corporations were now actually being tried for for manslaughter corporate manslaughter because they would be holding events that resulted in the death of someone or, you know, gross injury and what we started to see was, like you said, a shift towards regulation, towards some sort of accountability.

Speaker 1: 47:59

This is when, you know, licensing started to become a little bit more prominent and then corporations got on board. They said we're not going to hire event professionals that are not at least licensed or trained or have some kind of designation to prove that they adhere to a standard of care. Right, and I think that the coaching industry really does need that because, again, nobody goes into it with the intention of I'm going to fuck a bunch of people over and just make as much money as I can and run Right. Most coaches I mean never 100% but most coaches come in because they, like, like I said, they want to help people, absolutely yeah, and if you can have something that supports you in doing that, why not?

Speaker 2: 48:40

We have honestly had huge support from a lot of coaches.

Speaker 2: 48:46

Exactly what you said they desire to serve their clients at the highest levels and they are aware of what they know and what they don't know, and I think we can't get too caught up in like these voices of well, we don't write regulations and we're not talking about regulations. Actually, we're talking more about. What we're talking about is raising the standards of an industry that is riddled and wrought, honestly, with scammers. It's just it's no barrier to entry and there are people just like preying on vulnerable people and there really does, I think, need to be some kind of scope of practice and some kind of accountability and transparency. So those are kind of like the three values of EFC and I think the conversation has just started. It's great to have these open dialogues, not attacks.

Speaker 2: 49:56

Lisa has been attacked so many times and that's just not effective. It's not ashamed. Yeah, and these are coaches, which is really a shame, because we're not talking about big brother. We're talking about, like you said, accountability, raising standards, transparency, which helps everybody.

Speaker 2: 50:21

Yeah, they're always going to be bad actors in every profession, but absolutely single profession has some sort of those three things that we just you know every legitimate profession and you know, honestly, if you go outside of the online coaching space to you and you talk about coaching, most people will laugh, because they do not see it as a legitimate profession and that's because anybody can call themselves a coach and so you have to have some kind of standard of you know like, yeah, practice, and what is your scope of practice, and and so it's exciting in a way, because really this industry is just in its infancy and what we're seeing now is so many very highly qualified people coming out of corporate and coming out of, like, startup land and they're moving into coaching. So the the bar is really being raised because, these are people who are like you.

Speaker 2: 51:32

You came from, you have all this experience and you're coming into the space and being kind of like the voice of reason and like I love how you talk about like you are probably not going to make six figures or first year business, like it's just not you know. Oh man, I posted that one a couple years ago. Man, I really got hammered, but it's true, if you oh, I got a lot of shade for that one.

Speaker 1: 52:00

I got a lot of shade for that.

Speaker 2: 52:03

So what can say it's true for being an entrepreneur for like over 15 years.

Speaker 1: 52:08

Well, the stats don't lie, right? No, they don't lie.

Speaker 2: 52:11

And sustainable growth. Even though it's fucking boring and it's not like downloads and breakthroughs and all the things that I think are predicted to, myself included, it's, it's sustainable growth is where it's at and that's how you are going to build a beautiful business that works for you, not for it.

Speaker 1: 52:37

And with a standard of care. You know that you've someone's got your back as well, right, so you're protected as well, exactly, it goes both ways right.

Speaker 2: 52:45

Yeah, both ways.

Speaker 1: 52:46

For sure, marianne, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. We honestly could talk about this for hours. I might have to have you back on to talk a little bit more about stuff, but thank you for taking the time today. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 52:58

I so appreciate you asking. I just adore you and I know so many of your listeners just absolutely all your listeners love you, I'm sure, and I, if they want me to come back, I'd love to come back Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 53:13

I got a big goofy smile on now, all right, and we end every episode with the reminder, my friends, that you can have success without the BS, even if you're a fucking coach. I love that.