How Emotional Intelligence Shapes Authentic Leadership with Dr. Meaghan Stacy

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Dr. Meaghan Stacy, an accomplished psychologist, executive coach, and leadership consultant dedicated to helping individuals and organizations thrive through emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Dr. Stacy shares her insights on authentic leadership, navigating workplace challenges, and building resilience for sustainable success. Drawing from her deep experience in psychology and coaching, she offers practical strategies for fostering growth, confidence, and balance in both career and life.

You can find her on:

https://stacyconsultinggroup.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meaghan-stacy-phd000/ 

Transcript

Maeghan Stacy: 0:00

So there's a couple ways. So there was one specific moment where I decided I was going to actively act opposite of what I thought. I was in the car, listening to some morning radio show, and somebody like said this quote of like, you know, you're only held back by the stories you tell yourself. What do they know? What stories do I tell me? Oh, I'm telling myself I'm not a business person. Yep. Yeah, you're held back by the stories you tell yourself. And so I said, you know what, I'm not gonna do that anymore. I don't know what that means. Why am I doing this to myself? I've been able to get promoted at Yale School of Medicine. I have a successful practice. I have a lot of respect within the field, publish books, right? Like I probably could do this. I could figure it out. I'm a smart person with some agency.

Davis Nguyen: 0:42

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 Wynne, 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 businesses myself and have 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 elevating your coaching business.

Kevin Yee: 1:13

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Dr. Megan Stacy. She's the founder of Stacy Consulting Group. I've been a coach for 15 years in business for the last four years. Welcome to the show.

Maeghan Stacy: 1:29

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Kevin Yee: 1:30

Yeah. I'm so interested because I was checking out your LinkedIn and your associate professor at Yale, and you're telling me that you're a clinical psychologist. It's not normal for a clinical psychologist to ever go into coaching. So I would love to kind of hear like the origin story, the lore. What made you want to become a coach and turn it into a business?

Maeghan Stacy: 1:51

Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say psychologists don't often go into coaching. Like, why not? It makes so much sense. It's so natural. So I started out in serious mental illness, wanted to help folks with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, realized real fast that the system was broken, difficult to access, you know, evidence-based care. And so my first job right out of grad school was fixing mental health care systems. And so I would do a lot of coaching in that context, coaching people on, you know, recovery-oriented treatment and really treating people like people, right? A lot of the times clinical folks saw people as a constellation of symptoms or risks. And we would see them as a patient and lose the fact that they were people with goals and dreams, much like ourselves. And that kind of philosophy has been part of my coaching viewpoint for the past 15 years. And so that has grown into, you know, moving in. If I realized I could have a bigger impact on people with mental health problems by coaching leaders and systems, I realized I could have a bigger impact on healthcare by moving beyond the mental health care system. So I did that next. Then I realized, wait, why am I sticking to the healthcare system? Let me go into engineering firms, law firms, these highly technical fields where people are really at the top of their game, but maybe don't understand that their employees are people and treating people like people would be really beneficial. And so it kind of led into this niche where I combine this understanding of psychological science, data, behavior change, motivation, resilience, and I apply it to systems. And maybe that's unique to me because I have degrees in sociology and psychology. And so I've never really ever viewed person as an individual. I've always seen person in context. And so I can see how coaching a single person or coaching a system has such a ripple. So that's really how I made that transition. It was very organic. And then I went into business because people said, you realize you're a coach and an organizational consultant, right? Looked in the mirror, I said, I guess I am. And started taking on clients. And then the business has grown from there.

Kevin Yee: 4:00

Yeah, I really resonate with hearts of what you said about the healthcare system too. It's really interesting to see how you've been able to apply that to your coaching as well. Really curious because you mentioned how it organically kind of unraveled for you. Let's talk about the marketing. Like, how do people kind of find out about what you do? What kind of marketing are you doing right now? I love to hear that.

Maeghan Stacy: 4:21

Yeah, word of mouth, that has been my best driver by far. It took me a little while to get comfortable with that as marketing, right? I think, you know, for me personally, and probably as women, we're told, don't ask for things, take up small space, you know, don't be loud, don't visibly grow something, don't toot your own horn. And so going to people and saying, hey, this is what I'm trying to do. Do you have interest? Do you know anybody who could use my services? Give me feedback on what I'm offering. Am I building something that's useful? Being really vulnerable, that took me a long time to get there. I would say I was probably interested in starting a business for five years before I actually did it because I was so hesitant to ask for help. And I was telling myself stories like you're not a business person, you're an academic, you're a psychologist. And I really just stood in my own way. And it's really unfortunate. But I've really been kind of making it more of my story of who I am and what I'm doing. And I'm I'm trying to not quietly build anymore. And the more I do that, the more I'm really embraced. And people are sending me referrals and reaching out and getting a lot of leads just from, you know, friends or friends with the friends or people in their network. And it's been really, really wonderful. People are incredibly supportive when you ask for help.

Kevin Yee: 5:35

That's a really beautiful thing. You said something really interesting. I wrote in quotes, you're not a business person, you're an academic. And like it's a very interesting thing because I think I went through that as well. And I'm very curious, how did you kind of flip that story for yourself? Or what are some ways that you worked on to break that identity for yourself?

Maeghan Stacy: 5:54

Yeah, so there's a couple ways. So there is one specific moment where I decided I was going to actively act opposite of what I thought. I was in the car, listening to some morning radio show, and somebody like said this quote of like, you know, you're only held back by the stories you tell yourself. What do they know? What stories do I tell me? Oh, I'm telling myself I'm not a business person. Yep. Yeah, you're held back by the stories you tell yourself. And so I said, you know what, I'm not gonna do that anymore. I don't know what that means. Why am I doing this to myself? I've been able to get promoted at Yale School of Medicine. I have a successful practice, I have a lot of respect within the field, publish books, right? Like I probably could do this. I could figure it out. I'm a smart person with some agency. And so I just decided that, like the folks that I coach, take this big thing of building a business and break it down into small bite-sized chunks. And I was gonna take them one step at a time and do what I could at each step. When I fail, then I would either figure it out, ask for help, or realize I couldn't do it. I haven't hit that point yet, four years in. So that I think has been really helpful for me of the conscientious effort to act opposite to what I think and to really take things down into consumable parts and just keep going until I fail, with the assumption that I will, because that gives me permission and it makes it less threatening and less scary. And I've just been successful.

Kevin Yee: 7:16

So I think there's a quote out there something like if you don't think you can do it, you're right. If you think you can do it, you're also right, or whatever.

Maeghan Stacy: 7:22

My coach tells me that. If you say I can't, you won't. If you say I can, you will. So you're gonna be right. Which way do you want to be right?

Kevin Yee: 7:29

Yeah, that's like the gift and curse of the reticular activating system. We look for evidence to confirm our biases and stuff, too. So interesting. Okay, so it sounds like you're getting a lot of referrals, a lot of word of mouth. Once people kind of find out about you and they're working with you, what kind of coaching modalities are you offering? Like I know some coaches they offer one-on-one coaching, other people have organizational trainings, group coaching. But which ones have you kind of gravitated to over the years?

Maeghan Stacy: 7:56

Yeah, so I have a couple of different streams. So one is an individual one-on-one coaching kind of package offering where we work on whatever's getting in their way at work, whether it's as a high potential leader, an existing leader, established leader, or even a team member who's perhaps like dealing with a toxic culture, and how do they individually navigate that? My preference is to always, just as somebody who thinks in systems, is to always work from more of an organizational viewpoint. And so I often coach teams. I often coach full chains of command. So I'll run a project where I'm coaching a team that maybe has a toxic culture, getting the executive leadership team aligned with goals of that kind of lower level team, and then running individual coaching up the chain of command to assure that everybody's aligned with, you know, kind of where the team is heading. And then there's also components, companies I work with that just want training, right? So we have some new emerging leaders. Can you give them people, skills, training? And so we talk about active listening, empathy, emotional intelligence, and really how to understand yours and other emotions and then use them to guide your interactions with the folks you're supervising. So a little bit of one-on-one, a little bit of team and organizational consulting, and then training ARM.

Kevin Yee: 9:10

Sounds like a lot of work. So one of the other questions.

Maeghan Stacy: 9:13

It doesn't feel like work. I would honestly do it for free. It's like the stuff that gives me joy and meaning.

Kevin Yee: 9:19

Yeah, the reason why I say that too, I'm sure you love it. I'm sure it energizes you. How do you think about your client capacity? How do you manage it? Do you have help? Have you hired at all in your business?

Maeghan Stacy: 9:31

You know, I'm kind of in this crossroads of I think I'm getting real busy. Do I want help? Do I want to cap where I'm at? And I'm still working through that with my coach. I'm thinking about that as a business owner. I think about capacity in kind of a holistic, like me as a person way. It's not just how much capability do I have to meet with people, it's how much do I want to be meeting with people. I've got two very young kids with certain needs that they have to address. And so I have been thinking about how I want to grow my business. Right now, one of the ways I've been doing that is partnering with other coaches and consultants. And we've been joining forces to kind of make that lift a little bit lighter and splitting the fees. So that has been working out pretty well for me. That happened pretty fortuitously. I was talking to a colleague about what I was doing, and she said, My husband does that. And you know, he's drowning and he really is looking for somebody to partner with. And so that worked out really well. And then he told another consultant he knew, hey, this is going really well for me. My friend Meg has some bandwidth. Do you want to partner with her? And so I have a couple of partnerships that when big, big contracts come up, will join forces to help. And maybe somebody will take the training component, somebody will take the coaching component, or you know, however we want to kind of divide it up.

Kevin Yee: 10:40

Yeah, that sounds really interesting that you're partnering up with other coaches or partners in your eyes. Are these more like partnerships or are these like subcontractor roles?

Maeghan Stacy: 10:49

That's an interesting question. Maybe this is just my own personal lens, right? Like view people as people like don't particularly identify in the business space. So I see them as partnerships. Maybe they see them differently, and we haven't had that conversation. But even when there's a client-coach relationship, I view that as a partnership. I view everybody as equals. Everybody has their own expertise to bring in. And so my mind naturally goes to the answer partnership.

Kevin Yee: 11:14

Also, I'm very curious about this. I would like your insights on this. So a lot of coaches listening to this podcast, they actually struggle with like things like pricing strategy and pricing. I feel like money sometimes is like a very taboo subject in the realm of coaching. Obviously, you don't have to give any hard numbers, but I'm kind of curious how do you think about pricing strategies? What pricing strategies have you gravitated to? Because the past guests they talked about hourly, project-based, value-based, retainers, subscriptions. There's just so many pricing models out there. And so I'm kind of curious which ones have you kind of gravitated to?

Maeghan Stacy: 11:48

So I started out hourly, I'm charging a certain rate for each hour. I realized quickly that wasn't a great model because I would end up not really being able to bill in my eyes for some of the work I was doing, right? Like people expected I get one hour of coaching, I'm paying for one hour of coaching, and then they weren't paying necessarily for the 15 minutes of prep before the documentation after. Sometimes I'd send resources and I realized that sometimes I was spending up to two hours for the one hour of coaching. So well, that doesn't really make that much sense. So I moved into more of a packaging strategy. And I think too, for each different engagement, it will look different, right? So if I'm coaching a really toxic team and I have a lot of C-suite folks that I'm working with, that's gonna be a different pricing strategy than if I'm working with like radiology techs in, you know, kind of a lower level of the hospital. And for me, I haven't gotten into subscriptions, but I have gotten into packages and thinking about the value for the company. So originally I was when I built packages, I was like, great, this will be five hours of contact, probably 10 hours of crap. I'm gonna take my 15-hour rate and give them a 15-hour rate for this workshop. And I realized quickly that 30 people are coming to my workshop. So it's really the value that they're getting for the 30 people as opposed to the time I'm putting in. And so I raised my rates pretty quickly after I realized how much effort I was putting in and how cheap I was relative to other training and facilitator and coaches.

Kevin Yee: 13:20

How did you discover that? Like uh that you were kind of like on the lower end versus like well, two things.

Maeghan Stacy: 13:25

One, I was talking to one of my partners and he was like, no, raise your rates. That's absurd, that's a waste of your time. I was like, oh, okay, I had no idea. And then a client referenced, oh, you know, you came in really cheap on your proposal and we just we loved you and you were affordable. And I was like, oh, I don't know if I want to be thought of as like affordable, like I'm not a discount. And then I realized that the people who I knew what their rates were, as I learned and talked to colleagues, they didn't have a PhD. They weren't Ivy League trained, they weren't faculty in the Ivy League. I have a lot of credentials that they didn't have. They'd been in the business for many years, but I was not billing to my own value. But one of the things my own coach shared with me was when I was baiting this shift between hourly and packaging rates, she said, you know, hourly people work for other people. They're employees. They decide they're willing to pay you for one hour of your time. You don't work for anybody. And so that helped me kind of shift to that entrepreneur mindset a little bit.

Kevin Yee: 14:24

Yeah, and I also think too with hourly, most of the coaches I talk to, they hate it because of the reasons that you're talking about it. But even from the client side, like even for me, paying for a coaching, I actually don't like the hourly model, and it doesn't incentivize people to actually use it because people are in the scarcity mindset being like, oh my god, it's gonna cause there's this a level of pain associated every single time you book with a coach or whatnot as well. So it's kind of funny, like people love hourly sometimes, but no one really likes it from at least what I notice out there. Something I am also very curious about. It's not every day that we get someone who has a lot of credentials. You're from an academia background, you have a PhD and stuff. Kind of curious, like, like how has having all these like academic credentials like or I guess affected your approach to coaching as well?

Maeghan Stacy: 15:11

Yeah, I think it's been helpful and it's been a hindrance. So it's helpful in that I have real great experience in terms of psychological depth, organizational change. I bring in a lot of credibility. On the flip side of that, a lot of times you walk into a coaching or consulting engagement, and people are like, oh, you're a psychologist, what are you thinking? Are you analyzing me? Uh, Yale, like I'm a little intimidated. And so that has actually been a hurdle for me in several engagements in terms of really building that trust.

Kevin Yee: 15:42

Yeah, because I noticed that too, like back when um I was in pharmacy school and stuff. I remember like there was like a divide between the practitioners and like the ivory tower academics and stuff like that. So I was just very, very curious in hearing about your experience as well. Let's move on. I am very curious about your future goals. And so, what I'm curious about is like, where do you want this coaching business to take you in the next few years? Do you have any secret dreams, big ambitions, desire to hire more team members and scale? Would love to hear from your perspective.

Maeghan Stacy: 16:13

Absolutely. So I would say that I have a three-year plan and then I have a 10-year plan. And the three-year plan is to hold steady in terms of growth right now, which is a little counterintuitive, but like I said, I have very, very young children. And so one of my goals of starting this business was to be able to generate income, but also free up time for myself to be a mom, be present. I want to be on the field trips, and that's just kind of one of the values that's really core to who I am, right? So I'm in coaching, I'm in psychology because I love helping people. And if I was helping people, but not my own family, it would just be so disingenuous to me. So for me, right now, the three-year plan is to be that mom, but bring in as much income as I can while being available. That's three years. Ten years, I definitely want to be growing my business. I want to move from partnerships into employing people. You know, I want to hit a certain revenue mark, have some plans with my coach to kind of work on that, set the stage. So when three years comes, I can hit the ground running. But right now, holding steady, family focus, and then kind of build once my kids have launched a little bit more into the elementary school life.

Kevin Yee: 17:19

So it sounds like after your kids grow up a little bit more, you have desires to scale. But it sounds like right now it's more of a lifestyle business for absolutely. Yeah, 100%. I guess also in the season of business for you right now, what are some challenges that you're noticing in your business at the moment?

Maeghan Stacy: 17:34

I think the biggest challenge for me is travel, right? So young kids, my husband's in academia, he does animal research at a hospital, and so he can't bring the animals in when the patients are in. So he works a lot of the evenings doing animal research. And so being able to navigate, like, hey, I'm going to Boston for three days next week. And he says, I have large animal studies on Tuesday and Thursday, that's a really big challenge. And so that's where the growth would be kind of limited for us trying to navigate that, realizing that we're a partnership, we're a team, try to have to navigate and kind of almost trust our schedules together to make sense. That has been the biggest challenge for us. I realize that's not necessarily a business challenge, but for me as a coach and a consultant, that is my biggest hurdle right now.

Kevin Yee: 18:20

You have to travel a lot currently for your business at the moment?

Maeghan Stacy: 18:23

Some clients, yeah. So some clients are all virtual, some clients are, you know, in-person trainings for several days at a time. That's, you know, infrequent. That's you know, maybe every quarter. And then there are some clients. I have two that are coming to mind right now. They have pretty toxic cultures and they really want in-person coaching, consulting. They want an on-site presence to demonstrate kind of a strong commitment to culture change. And so I have been going to Chicago weekly, which, you know, puts a strain in terms of, you know, childcare, time, ability to take on other clients, things like that. So it definitely depends what the engagement looks like, but definitely traveling some more than I would have thought in this day and age of Zoom and virtual work.

Kevin Yee: 19:06

Okay, we're on to the segment of the podcast where I would like to play a game with you if you're open for it, Megan.

Maeghan Stacy: 19:12

Oh boy, sure.

Kevin Yee: 19:13

I noticed a few things during this podcast. You mentioned like you have a coach and all that. And so a lot of times, as you know, coaches they tend to invest in things and coaching, training, marketing, team members, masterminds, a lot of different things, right? And so one of the things I'm really interested in is are the stories of these investments. And I learned this game from this guy, his name is Matthew Dix. He was like a moth storytelling, like award winner or champion. I don't know what what the event was, but I learned this game from him, and it's really great at getting stories from people. What's gonna happen is I'm gonna prompt you four different prompts, and you just tell me the first thing comes to mind. And if there's a story behind it, I would love to hear it. Okay.

Maeghan Stacy: 19:55

Okay.

Kevin Yee: 19:56

First business investment in your member.

Maeghan Stacy: 19:58

It was very small. It was this water bottle.

Kevin Yee: 20:01

I can't see it. I can't read it. What does it say?

Maeghan Stacy: 20:03

It's Stacy Consulting Group. Oh. Well, that's not good if you can't read it. It's not serving its purpose. But I really felt like this is part of that acting opposite of I wanted to hide, I didn't want people to know who I was or what I was doing. And I wanted to start buying some swag to carry around at least external appearance of having a business, being proud of my business. And so I could start to own it, so to speak, and really step into that position of like, I have a real thing. I have a legitimate business here. And so that was my first investment in my business in terms of my mental shift to ownership.

Kevin Yee: 20:38

Last business investment you made.

Maeghan Stacy: 20:40

It is time. It is a time investment, it is not financial investment. I am part of a women's small business accelerator program. And we meet every other Wednesday. We've got workbooks, we are championing each other. It's 15 women who are in small business for a variety of things, and we work on our elevator pitch, we work on networking, we hold each other accountable. And that has been really rewarding in terms of just finding a community and not feeling so alone as a single person owning a business and maybe not knowing what to do and having a forum to go in, share your fears, share your doubts, be vulnerable, but then get feedback and helpful guidance. And so that's been every other Wednesday, three hours a week, plus the time in the workbook. So time investment, not financial, but definitely well spent.

Kevin Yee: 21:27

Best business investment you made.

Maeghan Stacy: 21:28

It's joining a society of psychologists who have gone into consulting. They are the friendliest, warmest, most helpful people you can join and talk to about pretty much anything. I'm starting a business and I have no idea what to do. 10 people jump in to say, Can I have a call with you and help you? I guess what I'm talking about is like finding these communities, finding these pockets of people where you can be yourself, be vulnerable, ask for help, which is really hard for me, and just kind of being embraced by them. So I think what is that, like 200 bucks a year? The best investment I've made. They have a conference, networking, a lot of fun, a lot of friendship, but really just you don't feel alone.

Kevin Yee: 22:09

Worst business investment that you made that you kind of want your money back from?

Maeghan Stacy: 22:14

It's clothing. I bought some expensive clothes when I started out, thinking that that was gonna help me embrace this role and image. And I would say that that was a complete failure. It's not obviously about the clothes. And so I would really like that wardrobe money back. There are some other courses I've taken that I've paid for that, not that they were unhelpful, but I think what I really needed, instead of taking more classes, I needed to dedicate the time to just reflect and gain confidence in my own skills and abilities. And I don't need more degrees, I don't need more certifications, I don't need more pieces of paper. They're all on this wall, you can't see them, but there's like a lot of paper. I don't need more paper. I really needed self-confidence. And so I think had I maybe spent the time instead of going to classes, just reflecting that I already had all of the knowledge I at least needed to start, that probably would have been a better investment too.

Kevin Yee: 23:05

And as you're sharing these stories, I'm kind of curious how has your decision-making process changed and what to invest in over the years?

Maeghan Stacy: 23:12

I am much more willing to invest in myself. And I don't know what that change is, but like I'm talking to you about, I have a coach when I first started. I couldn't even fathom the idea of paying money for self-improvement while I was starting a business. And maybe that's me now saying, well, I have some consistent revenue streams and I can spend that. But I think had I done it earlier, my trajectory may have been a little bit steeper, even. I would have shortened that learning curve for myself, or I would have gained confidence a little bit earlier. And so having seen kind of how long it took me to get to that point, I'm much more willing to say, hey, let's take a gamble and invest and see if I can improve, you know, my own skills.

Kevin Yee: 23:53

It's really interesting. I think that's the biggest shift from a business owner from like an employee is like the willingness to invest in yourself and all that. Like I noticed, like, even from this podcast, I talk to people about their offers, right? And they always say, like, oh yeah, sometimes the business to consumer market is a lot harder than like organizations or teams or seasoned business uh owners and stuff like that, too. So it's really, really interesting how you mentioned that shift in yourself over the years. Last game I want to play with you overrated, underrated. As a coach, I'm sure you get a lot of advice out there. What's the most overrated advice that you've gotten? And what's the most underrated advice that you've gotten so far?

Maeghan Stacy: 24:33

Overrated advice is the idea that leadership comes with a title or leadership for leadership's sake. And on the flip side of that, I think the most underrated advice is that leadership is unlocking potential. Leadership is not control, right? We want very simply treat people like people, the more you can understand who you're working with, who you're working for, the more you can empathize with where they are at, what they need, their experience, how they communicate, the more you're going to engage them, the more they're going to feel comfortable being vulnerable, the more vulnerable they are, the more they're gonna, you know, take chances, innovate. You're gonna problem solve just by empathizing with people, demonstrating vulnerability, being fallible, and just being human yourself and treating other people like human beings. It's gonna unlock so much for your teams, leaders, and organizations.

Kevin Yee: 25:34

That's a great answer. Last question. This is the hardest one, okay? So be prepared. Megan, how can people find you and connect with you?

Maeghan Stacy: 25:42

Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, Megan Stacy, or you can go to Stacy Consulting Group.com. I am happy to connect with anybody anytime.

Kevin Yee: 25:53

Love it. Yeah. Some things I really took away from this podcast is definitely I really appreciate like your academic background. It's very interesting to see how you ended up in this field, like from a very academic background as a healthcare practitioner and whatnot, and ended up into coaching and been able to apply it across multiple disciplines. You're talking about not only healthcare, but like also like engineering and all that sort of stuff, too. So I do appreciate your approach to things, and I think the most important part that you mentioned on this podcast was the humanization of people. I do feel like sometimes that is lost, and so I just want to say, Megan, thank you for what you do, and thank you for coming onto the podcast.

Maeghan Stacy: 26:36

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Kevin Yee: 26:38

My pleasure.

Davis Nguyen: 26:39

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit JoinPurple Circle.com.