The Intersection of Life Coaching, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship

Ever thought about what life coaching could do for you? Prepare to be enlightened as I pull back the curtain on my own journey to becoming a certified life coach, and how this transformative pursuit has not just elevated my business, but also enriched my personal relationships and overall outlook on life. I'll share the distinguishing factors between life coaching and counseling and how to determine the one that meets your needs best.

Shifting gears, we spotlight Emily Mann, the innovative founder of Inc and Indigo Studios. We unravel her inspirational journey of fusing creativity and business prowess, which has been instrumental to her success. Emily will share how incorporating the principles of coaching has given her an edge, and I will let you in on a tool to effectively plan your online launch. This episode is your roadmap to personal success, artistic triumph, and entrepreneurial victory. Get ready to be motivated, whether you're an artist, an entrepreneur, or simply seeking a more fulfilling life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Mind Over Medium, a podcast for artists who want to make money doing what they love. When you tune in a twink you will learn how to attract your ideal commissions, approach galleries for representation, have a great online launch of your work, and how to do it all with less overwhelm and confusion. You will have the opportunity to hear from amazing artists who will share how they have built their successful creative businesses. My hope is to create a space where artists and the creative curious can gather to learn about one of the most important tools creative entrepreneurs need in their toolbox their mindset. Thanks so much for tuning in to Mind Over Medium podcast. Let's get started. Hello, my wonderfully creative friends, how's your week going? I hope all is well with you and yours. Things are good here. I just celebrated Mother's Day and both my boys came home for a visit and we had a great time. I'm pretty new to the empty nest thing and while it can be difficult not seeing your kids on the regular, like you did for years and years, there's something really sweet about the relationship you get to create with your adult children. It's really good. Okay, enough about that.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Today I want to jump into episode 3. I thought it would be nice for us to talk about what is a life coach and do you need one? You've probably heard or perhaps even worked with a life or a business coach. Or maybe you only know about life coaching through Jez on peep show, and if that's the case, I have my work cut out for me. And if you don't know this episode of peep show and Jez, you should really google it because it's hilarious. I'll joking aside, I want this episode to offer clarity. I will share why I became a life coach, how working with a coach has helped me personally, and what it would look like for you to work with me or any other coach. I began my certification in September 2020 through the life coach school. I love listening to podcasts. I listened to a bunch of them and a couple of years or so before my certification, I found the life coach school podcast with Brooke Castillo, and I binge them like crazy and I still listen every week. There's so many I think there's over 500 now, or something like that.

Speaker 1: 2:21

What I learned from her teachings helped me piece together a framework for myself and my business that helped me move forward in a way that I wasn't able to do so in my on my own, and so, after a lot of thought, I decided I wanted to become a certified coach so I could help other artists become who they always dreamed they could be and help them build a business from their creative work and normalize making money as an artist. What I love about the principles offered through the life coach school really helped me. They really helped me understand why my deep desire to make and sell my art but in the early days, my desire alone didn't result in my ability to take the action needed to do what I wanted to do, and it really there. The concepts she teaches really helped me understand why and here's why I was struggling to get my business off the ground. I wasn't managing my thoughts. I was allowing my excuses, fear and overwhelm to be the thoughts and emotions I believed. Without questions, I bought into the lie that I couldn't help how I felt. As artists, we tend to feel things deeply, which can be amazing, but without the ability to question if those beliefs are true, we can find ourselves spinning our wheels. The coaching principles I was taught through the Life Coach School were a game changer for me and now for my clients.

Speaker 1: 3:39

I don't want you to confuse life coaching with counseling. I've had a lot of experience with counseling and or therapy and have benefited from it greatly, but life coaching and counseling are very different. Here's the easiest way I know to explain the difference Counseling explores the past to understand our present and life coaching explores the future to understand the present. Another big difference is, even though I have been trained as a coach on the principles through a six-month intensive program with many practicums and I do have to do continuing education to remain an active status but that is not the same thing as training that someone must complete to become a counselor. There's a much longer education process that involves a graduate degree, many, many hours of practice and a very extensive licensure process that doesn't even compare to the life coaching process. If you're dealing with trauma, mental health or unresolved issues from your past, definitely your first choice should be to work with a licensed counselor or therapist. However, if you are struggling to understand why you have the desire to go after your goals but continually lack the follow-through, or you notice you have trouble with procrastination or your relationships aren't thriving as you would like, life coaching could be a great option for you. So, again, I will use this great explanation on the differences between coaching and counseling that I actually stole this explanation from my coach, nika Maples. So thanks, nika.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Counseling looks to your past to understand your present, and coaching looks to your future to understand your present. Through my 45-minute Zoom sessions with my coach, I have experienced major shifts in these areas my willingness to put my work out into the world or pitch myself to galleries, events or designers. I know I can handle the rejection and the success because I know how to manage my thoughts and feelings. My personal relationships have benefited tremendously. I now know I am responsible for my feelings and behavior and no one else. Let me tell you what that is.

Speaker 1: 5:47

Free Coaching helps you explore your future in order to understand the present. I can now match what I want in the future to what I'm doing in the present. If you have the desire to create a successful, profitable, creative business, you have to be able to do what is needed in the present or right now to have the career you want next month, next year or in five or ten years. A life coach helps you by asking you what you want to create now, a year from now or five or ten years from now. It has really good, curious questions, because what you do today will make it possible to have the results you desire in the future. You'll have to be intentional about your decisions and actions. A coach helps you with this and so much more.

Speaker 1: 6:36

I've never regretted spending any amount of money working with a coach. I know it's an investment in myself, my business and my time. I've always gotten back my investment because when I put my time and energy into working on my healthy baseline and understanding how my thoughts create my feelings and my actions, I'm better able to serve my community and my family. The old analogy of putting the oxygen mask on myself before my child sitting beside me on the plane really reflects how the life coaching principles coaching principles I share with my clients gives them a huge leg up. Not only do I offer personalized coaching, but practical advice that I've learned from my years of being a working artist and, honestly, the personal accountability that is built into my one-on-one coaching container is great. As artists, we work by ourselves most of the time, and so just having someone that is in your corner cheering for you, not believing your stories, is really, really helpful. It can help you move forward faster.

Speaker 1: 7:38

I really, really wish I had hired a coach. Much earlier in my own journey, like at the very beginning, I hired a business coach and that was super helpful, but it was very action-based, which was good, but I wish I had had that extra layer of learning why I was or was not taking action that I really wanted to do. I would have seen results so much faster, with less overwhelm and self-doubt. Can you do it on your own? Of course? I have no doubt, and that's what I did at the beginning. There's so much knowledge available for free Out there. You can piece together things from podcasts like this one, youtube videos, books, and if doing it that way sounds like the perfect plan for you, then do it absolutely, and I really do hope that this podcast can be a piece of that puzzle.

Speaker 1: 8:26

If you decide to go it alone, if you want to speed up your process, I would recommend hiring someone to work with either myself or someone else. There's lots available out there for you. So what does it look like to work with me as a coach? It's really simple, but not always easy. We meet in a Zoom room every week or every other week. You come and share anything that's been on your mind and I ask curious questions about it. I know it sounds too easy. Well, it is, and it isn't, because here is where the magic happens.

Speaker 1: 8:59

When you work with someone who's highly skilled at listening to the stories you tell yourself and asking great questions, it can be jarring A coach like myself. I don't believe your stories. I don't commiserate with you. That's what your friends and your family are for, and they probably do that really well, and we all need that from time to time. I don't agree with you when you say you don't have time.

Speaker 1: 9:23

What I do is ask questions to uncover why you're choosing to believe your stories. And when I ask you why you are feeling and thinking certain ways and allow you to thoroughly explain it, you will hear yourself, try to explain it and you'll surprise yourself with your answers. We will explore if your answers are true or are they just old programming? You will stop holding onto your excuses just because they feel familiar. It is true if you want something different, you will have to do something different and, to be honest, sometimes we need someone to walk alongside us for a while to help us make those changes. I will ask you to get really clear on your reasons for making decisions. You will often hear me ask my clients do you like your reasons? And if you do, amazing. If you don't, then there's more to uncover. These are just a few examples of what working with a coach can look like.

Speaker 1: 10:12

My job as a coach, which I take very seriously, is to love my clients while not believing their stories, hold space for them, to uncover their thoughts and feelings, to help them feel safe. This is where real change and clarity comes alive. I hope you find this helpful. If you want to learn what clients have to say about the experience, you can head to my website at wwwleanslockincom to hear about it in their words.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Okay, my creative friends, thank you for listening. I'm excited to be with you next week, where you will hear from my friend, an amazing artist and entrepreneur, emily Mann from Inc and Indigo Studios. It's an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for listening to Mind Over Medium podcast today. If you found the episode inspiring, please share it with a friend or post it on social media and tag me on Instagram at Leigh Ann Slotkin, or head to my website, wwwleanslockincom, to book a discovery call to find out more about working with me one online. You can also head to my website to get a great tool I've created for you to use when planning your own online launch of your artwork. It's an exercise I've taken many of my coaching clients through and it's been very helpful. It's my way of saying thank you and keep creating.