From Psychotherapy to Intuitive Coaching: Sam Franklin’s Journey

 In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen sits down with Sam Franklin, an intuitive life coach, psychotherapist, and spiritual guide. Sam shares their journey from psychotherapy into intuitive coaching, blending traditional therapy with spiritual modalities like the Akashic Records. They talk about the challenges of building a coaching business, why personal healing is the best investment a coach can make, and the importance of community when scaling impact. Whether you’re curious about intuitive coaching or looking for ways to grow your coaching practice with authenticity, this episode offers deep insights and actionable wisdom.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-franklin-59385a56/
Website: https://www.samintuitivecoach.com/

Transcript

Sam Franklin 0:00

And I imagine other coaches experience this where a lot of people are trying to reach out to you and sell you stuff. And so you have to be super mindful of the investments and what the return would be. I think some of the best investments, one is like my own healing work. I didn't set into being an intuitive coach. I attended an academy that taught me how to connect with my intuitive gifts and do healing through spiritual work. And I found that to be really rewarding. And my healing just really, I changed so much. It's just a short period of time. So I was like, wow, this is a really powerful healing mode Allie.

Davis Nguyen 0:30

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching business myself, and I've been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevate your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda 1:02

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Series podcast. I'm your host, Rejan, and today's guest is Sam Franklin, an intuitive life coach, psychotherapist, and spiritual guide who helps people embrace their uniqueness, heal deep wounds, and step into their authentic power with unapologetic self-love. Drawing from their own journey as queer, gender-fluid individual, and years of experience as psychotherapists, Sam blends practical coaching with spiritual insight, including the Akashic Yeah, thanks for having me. Looking forward to this.

Sam Franklin 1:44

What

Rexhen Doda 1:47

inspired you to do this, to become a coach and then start your own coaching business?

Sam Franklin 1:52

Yeah, it's a little bit of a roundabout journey. You know, I'll try to keep it concise. But it really starts in childhood where I really felt like I connected well with people. My mom would always say I had like a sixth sense about people where I could just sense things about people that maybe they weren't saying. I kind of knew who to trust and who not to trust. I was always just picking up on all this excess energy. And so my intuitive gifts kind of really started there. Always was like a really sensitive kid. And I really didn't feel like I fit in or belonged anywhere. And so I think through all of that experience growing up, I kind of became this person that I think others who didn't feel like they fit in were drawn to. And I was always someone that people could talk to and open up to. And that led me to where as a psychotherapist. And then I just felt like something was missing from my work. And I didn't really know what that was. I tried different jobs and different client specific focuses. And then I had this spiritual awakening a few years ago after I lost someone close to me and just like deep dive into spiritual stuff and really discovered my intuitive gifts. And that really led me to my coaching business because I could blend in all the things that I already loved about therapy work with the spiritual stuff. So that's where intuitive coaching kind of came to be.

Rexhen Doda 3:02

Interesting. And so how long has it been since you've done coaching? I believe psychotherapy has been earlier than that. But when it comes to your business, when did it like, is it right now full time? I know earlier you mentioned like before we started that you started part time and then it was full time.

Sam Franklin 3:18

Yeah. So coaching, I started probably about like two years ago. It's still part time. I still run a separate psychotherapy practice because I also love that work. So it's something that I hope to blend a little bit more and hopefully down the road as maybe things change and like the therapy world is more open to blending in more spiritual tools, but we'll see.

Rexhen Doda 3:38

Cool. And I wanted to ask you, when you're working with your clients, so focusing on the coaching part of it, when working with your clients and going through the coaching journey with them, what about it do you find most rewarding?

Sam Franklin 3:49

I really love seeing people really discover who they are or take off all the layers of protection and masks that they've been wearing. There's like version of themselves that they feel like they had to create to stay safe or to to be loved or to be liked or to be valued. So I love when people strip away those layers and are able to get to the core of who they are and then embrace that, really start to love those parts of themselves and have compassion for themselves and feel more empowered and like they can speak their truth and they can show up as themselves. I see their relationships get deeper and richer. I see them get more confident, trust themselves and have their own connection to their inner knowing. And that's just been super rewarding to see.

Rexhen Doda 4:30

Yeah, that's beautiful. It's It's interesting how when you think about the external world and you're wearing a mask for so long, you actually might even forget who you truly are. So being able to unlock that is so powerful. So

Sam Franklin 4:43

that can be life changing.

Rexhen Doda 4:44

Absolutely. And right now, who would you identify as like the ideal profile? Is there some sort of a industry specific demographic, psychographic? Do they have some common goals or other commonalities when it comes to the coaching side?

Sam Franklin 5:00

Yeah, so a lot of the people that come to me or like kind of drawn to me, connect with my story, right? So they could be in the LGBTQ plus community. They could just feel more othered and just like they'd never fit in and they'd never been understood. They might have some religious trauma background because I also have that in my background. But a lot of it is like they don't trust themselves or they don't know who they are or they know who they are, but they're afraid to show it to the world that people are going to reject them and not love them or it's not going to be safe. And they tend to carry on a lot of guilt like that they don't need to carry. That's not theirs. They might have anger in that they're not in touch with because maybe that's been unsafe or they haven't been able to figure out how to express that and let it go. So it's really about like helping my clients develop a sense of self-trust and an inner knowing and to kind of remove all of that stuff that they've carried through the years that they don't need to carry anymore so they can feel more confident.

Rexhen Doda 5:51

And before to dive deeper into like the actual help, when we're looking at the intuitive life coaching, is there some sort of a program that your clients go through, some like program length? Or is it specific to every client custom? How would you describe working with you? Is it one-to-one coaching? Is there also group coaching?

Sam Franklin 6:09

Yeah, the main thing that I do is one-on-one coaching at this time. And so there's like a 90-day, three-month kind of package, coaching package that people can do if they want to work long-term. And then they can renew that or re-up it for a discounted price. Basically, I think a lot can be done in just three months compared to even therapy. Like there's just so much deeper work and like quicker work that we can do. in this kind of intuitive coaching space. But I also know that like long-term transformation comes from continuing to do the work. The hope is that eventually they can do it without me and I give them those tools. And then I also welcome people who are already doing their own work, maybe with another coach or a therapist, and they want a session or two here and there just to kind of get a check-in or do some deeper dives, work within the Akashic Records, which is the soul's library and get answers that maybe they wouldn't normally get from working with someone else in a non-spiritual space. And And then my favorite thing is relational work. I love doing sessions with couples or friends or family members where we explore their relationship and kind of help the relationship. And then in the future, I hope to do more group work. I've done some of that. I just really love creating a space for people to come together and connect and just really benefit from each other's energy.

Rexhen Doda 7:23

Cool. And just for the audience. And also for myself, I'm also not very accustomed to Akashic records. What is that specifically?

Sam Franklin 7:32

So the Akashic records is like an energetic library or database of your soul's records through all the different lives that it's lived. And there's also like a collective records, if you will. And then there's angels, spiritual beings that are the masters or guards of that. So what I do is like I tune in and I channel and connect with those guides and they go into library metaphorically because it's all energy and they kind of gather the information that someone might want to know about themselves, about past life, even sometimes into the future. And so you can ask so many things like your soul's purpose and challenges and gifts and help, you know, that on your path on this life and know what stuff that's happened in past lives, how that can carry over karma and things like that.

Rexhen Doda 8:16

To a Buddhist perspective, right? Would that make sense to you in a way? Because like thinking about lives before your life in that sense.

Sam Franklin 8:25

Yeah, so it definitely can connect to some other kind of spiritual religious traditions of this sense of we live a life, we learn life lessons and we grow. That's kind of the point of it. If something, we didn't learn a lesson quite enough or something happened, we might have some karma or stuff that we carry over into another life as we like learn that lesson deeper or we clear stuff or we might understand one side of something. Maybe we have an affair in one life and we're the one that experiences the cheating we were the one that had the affair. And then in another life, we experienced someone having an affair and cheating on us, almost to be able to see both sides of that. So sometimes that stuff can happen or sometimes we carry relationships from one life to the next. And sometimes there's just stuff that happened in another life that may need to be cleared in this life.

Rexhen Doda 9:14

Interesting. That is very interesting. And so when thinking about your clients right now and how they find you or how you find them, is there, and this is a question that probably other coaches are going to find useful, is, When it comes to marketing channels, is there a certain marketing channel that you see working really well for you right now?

Sam Franklin 9:30

I think like probably the biggest one is like networking and spiritual circles. So like networking with other people who do similar work as you, they can be a great referral source and collaborating with them on projects, whether it's like going on their podcast or doing a presentation or workshop together. I think that's a great way to be in front of multiple people's audiences. And what I have found is like tapping into a client base of someone else's that might really resonate with you. And then I would say word of mouth a lot of times when people work with me and they have a great experience and they feel like it's been helpful. They tell someone else about it, not even just like you should go see Sam, but more like, oh, my gosh, the session that I had. And here's like my experience. And then the person's like, oh, that sounds interesting. So sometimes it's just like embodying the work and letting the work speak for itself can be helpful. I am on social media and things. And, you know, who knows, like how how much that leads to clients all the time. But I definitely think it helps. build my brand and maybe some authenticity around what I do. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely things like classic stuff of freebies and things that you might give out to someone to get on there, have them join your email list and then kind of nurture them. But in terms of Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, a lot of it is building trust, especially with what I do and maybe what other coaches do. People these days are not quite as willing to just jump in and purchase a program from someone or work with someone that they've never met and no one else knows them. And so I think about kind of your presence online really speaks to like who you are and your niche and what your expertise is on. And so then I think that that helps people see like, oh, wow, Sam could really help me with that. That's something that really speaks to something that I'm working through.

Rexhen Doda 11:13

Yeah, especially like organic content and speaking to the audience through that. So when thinking about your coaching business for the next one to three years, looking to the future, do you have any specific goals or business goals that you're working towards?

Sam Franklin 11:26

Yeah, I'd love to do get back into more like group work, whether that's like retreats or group Akashic record readings where like everyone kind of comes in and I do many readings. I love creating community or like a group program just because I think people benefit so much, not just from like what I'm bringing, but like from each other and they learn from each other. And I love that work. And then also growing my podcast. So I just started my podcast and it's like live sessions so people can see what I do. And I think that is something where people can like hear their own stories and someone else's story. And so I kind of hoped to keep growing that in hopes that I can keep growing my business and help more and more people. Oh yeah. So I have guests. They're basically clients, people that have agreed to do a session live. So it's like a half hour Akasha record session. They get to explore their records. We do angel healing, all of that stuff. And so I'm super grateful to those people that are willing to be vulnerable and kind of put their stuff out there. Cause not everyone's going to want to put all of their issues and their stories and everything. So I appreciate that. when people are willing to do

Rexhen Doda 12:26

that.

Sam Franklin 12:55

I imagine other coaches experience this where a lot of people are trying to reach out to you and sell you stuff. And so you have to be super mindful of the investments and what the return would be. I think some of the best investments, one is like my own healing work. I didn't set into being an intuitive coach. I attended an academy that taught me how to connect with my intuitive gifts and do healing through spiritual work. And I found that to be really rewarding. And my healing just really, I changed so much in just a short period of time. So I was like, wow, this is a really powerful healing modality. Let me now do that. So I think when you're a healer or you're a helper, I think any work that you spend on yourself is not just going to help you, but also it's going to help your clients because you're going to be able to take your clients further in ways that you never did before if you didn't do that work. So I think that's a huge investment. And then the other thing was with my mentor, Amber Meyer, who I went to the academy and learned all these skills with. I also joined her Lightworker Luminaries Mastermind. It basically is spiritual business, entrepreneurial trying to build or grow their business. And so it taught me all the things that I didn't know because I didn't go to business school, how to market and build a website and who is your client, your dream client, and how do you market to them. And I think the community in that was super valuable. I think any investment that you can make that's not just about skills and what you're going to get out of it, but also about the community that you're going to build because those people can become collaborations, they can become referral sources. And being a solopreneur is pretty isolating and can be lonely. And so it's really helpful to have people who get it, who like know the journey that you're on. So I feel like those have been the best investments. That and delegating things. I hired a social media team to help me because I was like, this is not my thing to like write scripts and edit and all that stuff. And that doesn't bring me so much joy. So delegating to people that can do stuff for you that will help your business, but that isn't really your expertise. There's a lot of ones that like really ask for a And so I've been probably more conservative than the average person. It's probably been a benefit in some ways to me, but you know, I'll never know.

Rexhen Doda 15:02

Yeah. Well, being mindful of the risks that come with that, because oftentimes these offers that they make sign too good to be true. So right now, when thinking of growth and going through building your group session or group offer and doing the retreats, what would you say are some challenges that you're having right now with your coaching business? Or where would you say is the bottom line for you right now?

Sam Franklin 15:24

I think people willing to invest in things and kind of invest in themselves, especially at this time in our world with everything going on in the economy in the US. I think a lot of people are living in a place of fear and holding tight to things and not wanting to maybe try new things or take new risks. And so I think there's a lot of people There's been a slowdown in kind of the coaching field in general. And I would say like my biggest challenge is people understanding what I actually do. Like no matter how much maybe I explain what the Akashic Records are and what a session would look like, I think people have struggled to understand it. I've had so many people do a session. They're like, oh, okay, like now I get it. And that's why I did the podcast in hopes that like somehow that was helpful so people could like really actually see what I do. So I've only had six or seven episodes released. We'll see if like, you know, this helps in any way. But I would love for people to to really lean into their spirituality, whatever that means for them, because we're in such a unique time in our world and our history. And if people can really lean into that, I hope that I can just be someone that helps people through that. But I think people are just really struggling right now.

Rexhen Doda 16:29

Yeah. So an overall struggle when it comes to investing, especially in this period of time, and coaching is usually not the one that takes the priority for cases like this one where money is usually not, it's tight right now. So my final question to you is, again, for other coaches is, for coaches who want to scale their impact, so try to make a change in people's lives, touch as many people as they can, so scale the impact. What advice would you give to these coaches who want to scale that impact?

Sam Franklin 17:02

It's advice that I got from someone else, from a coach that was really helpful to me, which is focus on one offer, really scale back all the offers that you do, don't try I try to do so much at once, especially in the beginning and really focus on one and try to make it really great. So like you're known for it and you do it really well and then build from there. Because what I was doing in the beginning was like I was trying all these different things to see what stuck, but I wasn't like focused on one thing. And so there wasn't like one thing that I did best out of everything else. And I think it was leading clients to feel like decision paralysis of like, I don't know how Sam can help because Sam can do so many things. So like what's best for me? And so I tried to just like really scale it back and focus on one thing. more specific. So like one offer mainly, and then grow from there. And I think, again, connections that you make with other people who do similar things can really also help grow your business and you can learn from people. It's really, again, isolating out here being an entrepreneur by yourself. And I think we can become an echo chamber where we're not having people bounce ideas back to us and tell us what's working and what's not working. And so having a community of people can really help. call you out on some stuff where it's like maybe that's not the best option or try something else or you know I hear that message that you're trying to send out there and it's falling flat like maybe you could rephrase that

Rexhen Doda 18:23

thank you so much I totally agree with you starting with an offer at the beginning and then scaling from there makes a lot of sense and it's also easier to market that if it's just one offer if it's just one focus in a small niche initially and then you can scale afterwards it makes a lot of sense so thank you thank you so much Sam thank you so much for coming to the podcast That's it for

Sam Franklin 18:47

this episode

Davis Nguyen 19:01

of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches save lives. scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit joinpurplecircle.com.