Mindset, Marketing, and Mastery: Luke Harlan’s Blueprint for Coaches

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Pedro sits down with mindset coach Luke Harlan to explore how to scale a coaching business without losing its effectiveness. From a powerful life-changing moment during a bone marrow donation to building a transformational coaching program, Luke shares how self-awareness and accountability became the foundation of his journey.

They dive into the transition from one-on-one coaching to group coaching and community-based models, breaking down how to turn repeated coaching insights into scalable systems and modules. Luke also opens up about the real struggles behind marketing a coaching business—especially when selling something as intangible as mindset transformation.

Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeharlan/?skipRedirect=true
Website: https://www.skool.com/mindset-mastery/about

Transcript

Luke Harlan 0:00

Now I'm in the phase of how do we scale it without watering down the effectiveness? And the way that is done is through group coaching and community. And the way I look at it is in my one-on-one, what things do I repeat? Some of the empowerments, some of the shifts, some of the understanding of how our mind works, some of the education pieces. How do I, if I'm empowering people with those things on a daily basis or my coaching clients, I don't need to be there. I can video that, I can create a module, I can kid a training where they can consume that and understand the premise. And then when I go to work with them one-on-one or work them in a group setting, everyone's on the same page. So that's where it starts to augment, where it's one to many, but they're getting that attention. They're getting the edification of the process, of the empowerment, the knowledge. And then when we go to execute, they're getting that as well. And in the one-on-one, they just get more hands-on, whereas the group coaching.

Davis Nguyen 0:52

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.

Pedro 1:23

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and today I'm joined by Luke Harlan, someone who spent nearly a decade as a strategic marketing consultant working with CEOs, owners, leaders, and solopreneurs before discovering that mindset was the biggest hurdle to both professional and personal growth. After studying neuropsychology, behavior change, and habit installation, he created the Mindset Freedom Coaching program to help midlife professionals overcome limiting beliefs and self-doubts. His five distinct mindset shifts program empowers clients to operate from self-awareness, accountability, belief, new vision, and intentional action that align with achieving their goals. He helps professionals and self-sabotage, imposter syndrome, and procrastination while also offering keynote speaking to organizations ready for increased clarity and self-empowerment. Welcome to the show, Luke. Wow, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's great to have you. And you know, I always like to rewind a bit, get back to the origin story because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, you know what? I guess this is what I'm doing now. So when was that for you?

Luke Harlan 2:41

It was a very pivotal moment. It was an aha moment in my life. Uh years ago, I was uh post-divorce and I had my marketing agency, my marketing business, had two raising two boys as a single dad, and I had just kind of lost touch with the world in a lot of ways. I just was self-sabotaging, I gained a bunch of weight, I was over 300 pounds. I was really distanced from life. I was just a voyeur. I was just kind of watching things happen. I was what we call phoning in my life, just making sure the business was going, the kids were fed, you know, basic things. And I just really wasn't happy and I was really detached. And I couldn't pull myself out of it until I received a call. I had a phone call, and uh the person on the other line was from um a donor agency because I had signed up to be a blood and bone marrow donor years and years ago. And they called me up and said, Hey, you're a match for a critically ill leukemia patient. Are you still interested? And it was that turning point which someone was reaching out where I started, I felt like I had value. Of course I was going to help. I felt like, okay, I can jump back into the game and fast forward to being on a hospital bed, ready for the procedure to donate to help a critically ill person, that I was sitting there in this reflection and I just started crying because I realized at that very moment that all the decisions I had made had put me in harm's way. I was on this couch. I were on this bed, you know, wires and tubes and everything preparing me for this uh donation. And I had put myself there. The decisions I had made, the poor choices. And when I took that self-awareness along with accountability, I realized in that moment there was this overwhelming sense of hope because if I could make decisions that put me in a bad place, I could make different decisions to put me back on track to the life that I really wanted. I just didn't know exactly how, but I knew it was possible because I was taking ownership in that moment. I didn't recognize it as that. That's more of like a reflection post-mortem. But in that, in that moment, that's when I just started crying. And the nurses were like, Are you okay? We haven't done anything yet. And I said, No, I'm fine. But it just awakened me to that I needed help and I needed to raise my hand and find out how do I change my decision making. And that's when I started going down the rabbit hole of how do we think? How do we change our behavior? How do we change our habits? How do we change the things and those limiting beliefs that are self-sabotaging? And that's when I went down the pathway of how do I change me to become the person that I need to be to do the things that I want and achieve the success that I've been desiring for so long. And that was really that cathartic aha moment in that self-reflection that spawned my interest in not only helping myself, but helping others who felt the same way.

Pedro 5:12

Whenever I talk with someone on this show, there's sometimes there are more natural progression, but I I am really fond of the aha moments when you put things into perspective and realize, okay, this is not really working out. I need to make a change, and that pivot looks like it was very important for you moving forward. So that's very interesting. Now, you know, I always ask this because I want to understand when did it shift from I'm helping people, this is a calling, right? To I'm building a real business around this when you realize, okay, this is actually a coaching business.

Luke Harlan 5:49

Yeah. Still not sure I'm 100% there. You always got the head games. And that's just the way it is because well, I any sort of in the transformational world, the cool thing about anything that we want to do is that someone else has already done it and left those, you know, footsteps in the sand or those they've already gone through the landmine, the minefield, and we don't have to do it. They left the books, the courses, the mentorings. And in my world, the transformational world and the mindset world, we have such iconic figures like Tony Robbins, and then we get into these people who've been around for decades. So I know it's possible that this might this could turn into a real business. That was when I I kind of dropped the ego and I went into that what we call, what's the word? It's like a conscious incompetent, when you're finally aware that you don't know what you don't know. And that's when I started raising my hand and investigating what kind of business can my methodologies, my five shifts that I had to take myself through when I went down the rabbit hole of how to change my behavior and my habits and how to rewire my brain. And I came up with something that worked for me. How do I apply it to someone else? And that's when I started searching for the business models. That's when I started realizing this was a real tangible thing that other people had done. I just needed to create it in the way I wanted to, in the sense of what's going to work, but what's going to align with me personally and professionally with my journey and who I'm going to serve. And really who I'm going to serve is myself at that point of feeling stuck and uncertain and wanting more. So it's it and it's still going on this evolution right now. So I would say it was a good year into coaching that I was testing and trying and kind of fumbling around in the dark while still delivering value. Because your client, if you give them a transformation, we're our own worst critic. On the back end, I'm like, I could have done that better, or this program could be shorter, or I over talked, or something like that. And we're criticizing ourselves. But at the end of the day, if the client gets the transformation, if they get what they need out of the program or out of the coaching, then that's a win. They don't really know any different, but from the uh the business side of things and the coaching and how we are our own critics, uh, it was a good year before I felt confident through the competence of skilling up that I knew I had something that was scalable and could actually create a larger impact moving forward.

Pedro 7:59

Okay. So it sounds like you're trying to serve past Luke, right? The guy that was stuck a while ago and you kind of get him because that's you. Okay. But I want to understand, and I I love the fact that you're in the eye of the hurricane, right? You're still trying to solve it, which is something that I always like to talk to people in the show that are doing the thing and not already on that success point when they're like, oh, I did that 10 years ago. No, you're really doing that right now with AI and all of that and all the noise. So my question to you is were you able to find at a certain point your own ICP, your own ideal client profiler, or are you still in the trial and error, feeling that testing and feeling, hey, how do I find the guy that can resonate the best with my message?

Luke Harlan 8:46

No, I I've really dialed it down, and that is that entrepreneur or the aspiring C-suite person, the person in business who's looking to elevate themselves, or that entrepreneur who's coming across those obstacles of, you know, um you know, they're procrastinating, they have that imposter syndrome, uh, they have limiting self-beliefs, even though they may be very successful or trying to be successful, what's holding them back is them. And those are the people that I can give permission to become their best selves by giving them the tools to take away those things that are self-sabotaging. And so my ideal client is me in my professional world, even though when we change our mindset, when we change our, when we attack our limiting beliefs and we rewire our subconscious to be in alignment with our conscious goals, that can apply because that's what we show up to everywhere in life. That's can apply to health and wealth and fitness and relationships and our spirituality and things like that, because that's how we interact. We're only one person, but it's the entrepreneurs, it's the business-minded folk, and mostly midlife people. Because they're that's the one when they're questioning that impact, not just can I acquire wealth to provide the things that we all need to survive and then thrive, but what is what's our legacy and impact moving forward as we get older? And I think that that sweet spot has been the midlife professional.

Pedro 10:00

So let's talk about marketing then. We're talking about the midlife profession, the entrepreneur, right? That's your ICP. What I want to understand is how do they usually find you?

Luke Harlan 10:10

Well, initially, uh, because I had done so much networking and breadth as being a marketing agency and a strategic marketing consultant, I I had a pretty substantial client base over 10 years of doing that. And what I did was just really not solicit them, just engage them in conversation about letting them know what I was doing and the struggles and the pitfalls and how I'm helping people to make sure to prove like this resonates with a large majority. And through those conversations and through some speaking engagements and being invited in uh to smaller groups and uh you know, mentorship people, that's it really started uh grassroots and organic by just having those conversations about what I was doing and it just clicked off the bat. People like, I I think that way, I feel that way, I I just didn't know how to express it, or I was too vulnerable and had an ego, or I just was afraid to admit that I was having these things going on. Um, and that really just validated uh the whole premise of the coaching and who I was reaching out to. Uh so that first year there wasn't really any except for speaking engagements, it was pretty much organic through my existing network. But then after a while, everyone knew I had to expand that. And that's when I started looking at the other means of attracting people in that business world. And that presented a lot of challenges.

Pedro 11:24

Okay. Now, let's picture this. Pretend I'm your ICP, right? I resonated with what your work, your content, and all of that. And eventually I want to know what working with you actually looks like, right? So everyone builds their coaching practice a bit differently. And you mentioned there are several modules or ways to do it, and people have done it, but what I'm trying to understand is how do you structure your coaching practice? What does that experience look like right now from my perspective as your client that is just on boarding? Sure.

Luke Harlan 11:56

I believe in the model of actually like making the transformation, not just teaching you information and letting you do it on your own. So I created what's called the five shifts, which provides a foundational blueprint, which I take you through. It's a one-on-one coaching program. Well, the first thing we identify is what is that one thing that you really want to accomplish and what's going to hold you back. And we use that as a real world example to taking through the modalities, the five shifts. It's real world. It's conversation, it's empowerment, it's education, and then it's execution. And that's done on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, depending on your schedule, you know, how much you can consume, your time frame in the sense of how much can I execute per week to get through each one of the shifts. So you own it, embody it, and have executed and have seen the results. And they all tail onto one another. They build on one another. And that's when I take you through that program, and that's the five shifts of the Mindset Freedom program. And that gives everyone the blueprint of now how to look at the world and perceive it from a lens of taking a step back, becoming self-aware, understanding what's going on, and being able to not emotionally react to situations in a life, but to intelligently respond because they're dialed in with the clarity of what they want, why they want it, and how they're going to feel when they achieve it. So that's that's the programmatic way of the coaching program. You're never overwhelmed, you're not fed fed from a fire hose. To me, the biggest problem in the marketplace today is people just get hit so hard with, oh, you have to, with all these tactics. Oh, you got to get up at 5 a.m., you have to have affirmations, you got to take a cold shower, you got to do these breathing exercises, you've got to, you know, write in a journal, you have to have a vision board, you have to manifest, you have to all these things, and they're so overwhelming because that's like three hours of your day. And so what I teach is and and help people realize is that how do we just rewire our minds so we're hyper focused and given the tools to get rid of the noise, to get rid of the distractions, to start owning our own thoughts, and so we can execute them in alignment with the goals that we now know are clear and purposeful.

Pedro 13:59

Okay. I mean, your work seems pretty hands-on. We're talking about uh you're taking them through the five shifts, uh, we're talking about speaking gigs. So my question to you is, and especially in the coaching space, because we see that a lot, because coaches are like out there wearing all the hats. So, how do you think about capacity? So you don't stretch yourself too thin and ended up being one of the burnout coaches out there, I would say.

Luke Harlan 14:22

Well, I I look at it pragmatically. Prove the coaching, get the testimonials, get all those sort of things. I've done that. Now I'm in the phase of how do we scale it without watering down the effectiveness? And the way that is done is through group coaching and community. And the way I look at it is in my one-on-one, what things do I repeat? Some of the empowerment, some of the shifts, some of the understanding of how our mind works, some of the education pieces. How do I, if I if I'm empowering people with those things on a daily basis or my coaching clients, I don't need to be there. I can video that, I can create a module, I can get a training where they can consume that and understand the premise. And then when I go to work with them one-on-one or work them in a group setting, everyone's on the same page. So that's where it starts to augment, where it's one to many, but they're getting that attention, they're getting the edification of the process, of the empowerment, the knowledge. And then when we go to execute, they're getting that as well. And in the one-on-one, they just get more hands-on, whereas the group coaching still have we have live QA and things like that. So now I can do the one-to-many model and still deliver the value and the transformation individually. That's that's the way I free up my time by automating some of the things that are just standard, standardly communicated, if that makes sense.

Pedro 15:33

Makes sense. Now, I want to jump on that bow, the one you mentioned, you know, about the scaling, but with intention, sounds like. Now, because I'm curious where you're taking all this, right? Looking ahead, where are you doing where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about you know scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Luke Harlan 15:52

I'm excited. This is where I I fall in love with the process and see where the process takes me. And this is something where the end goal, the end goal is kind of a thousand-foot thing, which is I want to impact as many lives as possible, but not only impact them, but give them the tools where they can be a ripple in their own pond. They can take these lessons and provide them to their kids, to their business partners, to their community and start being an example of how to get that clarity and thinking and how to shift their perspective and give them the tools to like throw the pebble in their own pond to create that ripple effect. I really look at that as kind of like the mindset freedom movement in a holistic sort of way, is just creating a bunch of critical thinkers who understand how to take control of their own thoughts and live the life they want by ignoring the distractions. And so what I look at is this phase where I am now scaling into the group coaching, doing more speaking engagements as okay, let's make sure that is solid foundation. How do I refine that and iterate from that to make sure the experience to my clients is exactly what they're getting out of without any hiccups? Let them, their feedback massage that into the next thing. And that's really where I look at because I think the biggest anchor and downfall that I've come across while trying to create what my coaching program is or isn't is by getting overwhelmed by what people who are on their chapter 30 in their business when I'm on my chapter two and seeing, well, this person has, you know, 15 closers and the scalable thing and it's all automated and the the drip sequences and the lead magnets and the funnels and all these huge enterprise. And I step back and I say, I need I need all that. And what I've learned is I don't. I need to be me in my space, in my time, have the patience to execute with intention for the sole outcome is how do I benefit my client? How do I empower them for the transformation that they can understand and know and not just have a quick hit of endorphins and feel good motivation, but literally give them the tools to change their change the wiring in their brain and move forward. So I don't have that five-year plan in the sense of I'm gonna have the zillion-dollar business with 28 people closing because I'm also have a little bit of a bad taste from when I was doing marketing and I scaled a business into an agency, is I created a business that I didn't want. It wasn't my lifestyle business. I became an employee of my business. I was managing managers and account people, and then how was going out and getting the business. And the only thing I really loved about that business at the end was the 8% of my time where I got to spend with the individuals, with the entrepreneurs, with the CEOs, with the creative teams, really working with them for the creative and the strategy and helping them see how they could make their business into the something that's unique to them, how they wanted it, not just how it could be done. So that's really what resonated with me the most is making sure that I'm delivering something that's not gonna paint me into a corner just because there is already a pathway that's gonna have some economic goal. My economics, I rather have impact and create a lifestyle that I enjoy.

Pedro 18:54

Yeah, it looks like you went through the hard way to learn that, right? And that's exactly sometimes what coaches do, peeling off the layers to understand the reason behind it. Do you really want to do this, you know, and what's the intention behind it? Yeah. Whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, there's always something we're refining, right? Something under the hood. So what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business? I know you mentioned automations, I know you mentioned there's a lot of intention behind what you do. I'm just curious about that.

Luke Harlan 19:21

Yeah, mostly it is building out the systems right now. Because for so long it was kind of I have had this marketing knowledge, but it's this intuition and coaching. And for a long time I wanted to make sure the coaching program was solid and it delivered, and I didn't really take it to the world. I did it through organic. Now that I'm confident in it and I have the testimonials and I have the case studies and I have like more confidence and confidence in what I do, I feel like I can broadcast it with authenticity and security and confidence. And so what I look at now is okay, if I'm gonna do that at a larger scale and bring more attention to help more people in a group module, I want to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. So it's systematizing the onboarding, it's systematizing the communication, making sure they felt included. And now I have a community of people where they can interact with each other, making sure that's happening, uh, but a lot through automation and AI. And then on AI side is replicating myself, my voice, training the different bots to talk and sound like me in the sense of who I am and what I do. So when we look at putting out content and communications, that process uh could be expedited and multiplied a lot faster, and it takes my time off of the marketing into delivering better coaching.

Pedro 20:36

Interesting. So using AI not to replace the coaching piece, just to add some efficiency to it and at the same time delivering somewhat of your voice through content, but using AI too, is that something like that? What you just told me, something like that?

Luke Harlan 20:53

Yeah, well, when I looked at like cloning, when they like, you know, you see so much of that, and if you really train it, because it's really just the video representation of yourself, all the content behind it is still me. It's still my communication, it's still hot buttons, it's still the points, the messages and empowerment, the things that I want to help uh people realize and understand that I understand what they're going through and that there's a remedy on the other side if they're interested in in uh investigating it. It's just taking out a lot of the labor, the video creations, but I still want them to see me because at the end of the day, this is still a personal stuff. The group coaching is done by me, the QA in my free community, where people can call in once a week, you know, any any of the members of the free community on school can come in and ask whatever they want or pre-ask questions about anything. Um that's where we have this kind of informal communicate, you know, coffee type environment, QA, and that's great. I'm I'm still it's my coaching company. It's Lou Carlin coaching. So I don't have any plans to distance myself from that in in the immediate future because this is how I build if you like me, great. If you don't, then I'm not your person. But I want people to see that. And I think that's one of the greatest things in life. It's like The most unique thing about anything we do is us. It's who we are. You know, and I think that's what attracts because at the end of the day, information, you know, you're one device away from all the information in the entire world. People don't want information. They want instruction and empowerment. They want someone to help them. And but they're only going to receive help from someone they know they can trust and someone they resonate with. I may not be that person for everyone. And it's proof in the world. There's always room in the pie for someone else to come in with a skill set because you have friends, you have colleagues, you have other things. Why do you have friends and colleagues and people who want to be around you? Because they like who you are. Right? At the end of the day, we don't have to overcomplicate it or become a persona. Just be us and deliver value. The people who are resonate with that are will come into your world. The people who don't, great. I'm not their person. And that's 100% okay. I mean, if I'm going to spend my life giving value to people and all the time and effort that I want to be able to do that, of course I want to surround myself with people that I want to be around and they want to be around me. It's just simple in that world. I don't like blend the two. These are my clients. No, these are people who need help and I can help them. And they help me. They give me, you know, instruction and feedback and open my eyes to things that I didn't see. And I think this is the that community of learning and where we can all feed off each other. Everyone brings something unique. To me, that's the entire growth experience. There's not one guru on top of the hill preaching down. It's just maybe I know a few things more than you need and I can help you solve a problem, and vice versa. That's what I love about the community. That's what I love about just being yourself and trying to be as authentic and genuine as you can, because it takes the pressure off of creating some persona that you think will attract more people because it's a marketing tactic. I've tried to come away from that because that's to me that feels disingenuous.

Pedro 23:45

Yes. And you know what? I feel like I need to dive into a topic here with you because you have a very unique background that I don't see so often with uh coaches. You owned a marketing agency, right? Even though you burned out with that, that gave you a background, right? And I see a lot of coaches out there that they struggle with the marketing piece. Positioning and all of that. So, first question for you is Was coaching such a different beast to handle considering the marketing piece since you're you're the market, you're marketing. Did you actually struggle with that positioning and all of that since you had that marketing background?

Luke Harlan 24:23

100%. It's like the cobbler's kids with no shoes. You can't be your own client for two reasons. One, you don't have the perspective to give yourself the validation because you're always in your own head. You know everything you know all the time. So you think certain things, you rationalize certain things, you need that perspective, that outside perspective from someone else who sees you from their eyes as either a consumer or a contemporary or fellow business person saying, does that resonate with you? So it is very difficult because I can't see the forest of the trees when you're trying to market yourself. Because you second guess, that's the second part, is being my own client is that I was second guessing everything. I had known I could give it's think about this. You can give the best life advice to your best friend, but you can't give it to yourself. It's easy to help other people because you you're not attached to it in such a way, an interpersonal way. You can step back and you have that lens of non-bias of just saying, well, I can see the holes in your marketing or I can see the holes in the argument, and we'll just find the right strategies and tactics to plug those holes that you know meet your investment level that meet the criteria that you're looking to do. That's really easy. I can do that for everyone else. But for yourself, that's when our self-doubts are limiting beliefs, who we think we are in the marketplace, whether we're an imposter, who's going to listen to me. I've done this marketing thing, now I'm trying to do this coaching. And the other is a clarity of identity. You know, no one wakes up in the morning and says, I need a transformational mindset coach. Like, you know, that was the hardest thing. If you said, I'm a strategic marketer, I do online marketing, or I do lead generation, I do these things, that's very tangible. People understand that. No one wakes up and says, I need a mindset coach. They have symptoms. They're stuck, they're frustrated, they're not feeling far enough alone. So we can't label ourselves where it's really a known quantity. It's becoming more of a known thing. So people are like, what are you, a life coach? Are you a business coach? So I struggled how to communicate who I was and the value that I was delivering initially. And from a strategic level, if you look at how we go after that ideal client profile, yes, I work with professionals and entrepreneurs who are mid-life, but that doesn't mean that they're all stuck, that they're all frustrated, that they all want more. Those are demographics, not psychographics. The emotional content of like how we think and how we feel, those are psychographics. And I can tell you right now, there are no fields on your LinkedIn profile that are showing what your fears are, like what your self-assessment of your psychology of because how do we present ourselves in the real world? We present ourselves as our best version of ourselves that we want other people to be attracted to. We're not saying, yeah, I have doubts a lot of time, but I'd really like you to use my accounting practice. I really struggle getting marketing, but I'd really like you to be my client. No, we don't have that communication. So that was also a struggle in marketing to the target market criteria is how do I get my message to the right people when I can't quantify the psychographics of what's happening in other people's minds. So that became also a hurdle. And I learned to go through those momentums where you really have to dial in the attraction piece by talking about what the symptoms are that they're going through. And what, as Dan Kennedy once said, if people know Dan Kennedy from the marketing days, is you want to enter the conversation in the minds of your consumer. And that conversation is what are their pain points? What are they thinking about on a daily basis that's weighing them down, that's keeping them up at night? And that's been the transition of communication, which I've had to evolve and retrain myself. And going back to that first part is can I do it on my own? No. I needed mentorship, I needed coaching, I needed to put myself in front of other people who were much further along to look at me and say, This is why it's not working. Oh, this is how you are presenting yourself when I said this is here's how I'm presenting myself and want to be known as. And then come back and say, This is what we got out of it. And it was like black and white. No wonder I'm repelling certain people because I'm thinking one way, but I don't have the perspective on myself. And kind of like, yeah, that was kind of a gut punch. But it's the reality that I needed to become more self-aware. And the only way you can become self-aware is if you if you can stand back and just witness yourself without the bias lens of your own thinking and who you are, which is really uh nearly impossible. So that's why having mentorship, having coaching, having someone else really kind of stake stock of what you're trying to achieve to point out the obvious holes that we can't see, the forest through the trees, is to me been the most invaluable lesson of putting the ego aside, raising my hand and saying, I need help.

Pedro 28:47

Who can help me? Interesting. I love the gut punch, such a humbling experience, right? And also there when you mentioned LinkedIn, that that reminds me and social media overall, sometimes we you see posts on coaches out there and they're doing like a pain point approach, right? They're trying to dig into that, and they're like, Oh, nobody's engaging. Okay, come on. If you're targeting, for example, a CEO, D suite level, you know, or a business owner, and you're saying, Hey, are you burned out, for example, and are you he's not gonna engage with you in a comment and out in the open, right? In public, say, hey, yes, I'm super burned out. You know, my employees they know this. So this is something that sometimes I see it, like they the coaches out there, they're like, oh, nobody's engaging. But I think in reality, sometimes they are just watching, right? So that demographic can be, you know, leaning you into a path that's not reality sometimes. So, what do you think about that? Do you see that happening as well?

Luke Harlan 29:44

Yeah, I there for every one, there's a hundred people who want to like, but they don't want to engage and expose themselves. They're that's just not their personality. So I look at it this way, and it's something that I saw a long time ago, is that I engage with the people who engage because they're raising their hand, even if it's one follower or one like or one comment, is I reach out to those people in a non-salesy way, hey, you know, uh, you know, thank you for liking that. You know, is there something on your mind you'd like to discuss? Or is there something, you know, I just engage in very friendly conversation, and it's usually a question, what what other content would you like to see? Just how can I serve you better? Because I don't get hung up on those metrics because I know people are watching. Because you can see views, you can see all the people that view the stuff, and then you see people that engage. And that's like one of those things like, you know, do I put more call to actions? Do I have that lead magnet? Do I test those things? Of course I've done all those things. And what I found is that the people who want the free stuff aren't the people who become my clients. The people who just kind of sit back and watch over time, what happens is I engage them. And the once I kind of break down that wall, that's when they communicate back. And so it's it's sometimes it's a longer fishing sales cycle and in that sort of regime. But it's it's what's working and having a free community now where they can put their toe in their water into it and see what I do and see the communication that I provide without having uh, you know, a financial investment, that's that's also leads to the escalation of the no can trust bridge. So the community that's growing now has been very helpful in people self-identifying that they're ready to move forward with more hands-on uh coaching.

Pedro 31:16

Nice.

Luke Harlan 31:16

But yeah, the whole social media thing, I think we get overwhelmed a lot of times because all we get in our feeds is, oh, here's what gets you 72 clients in 12 minutes, and you got to do the calls to action, and you got to do the scarcity, and you got to do this, and the leap maggins and the book funnels. And you're like, it's the end then. Oh, you can get and then you gotta do this, and then you gotta do this, and then you gotta do this, and then you gotta do this, and you're like, Am I a coach? Am I a professional marketer? How many hats do I need to wear? And this is where I I got stuck into it because I had all this knowledge and I tried to do all those things. And what I found out is I was 90% of my time was just building a mouse trap that I wasn't getting any eyes on that didn't resonate with people. And now it's a very simple formula. I get out there and talk about a problem, the people that engage, even at the small level, I communicate with them, invite them into a free community group, they come into the group, they start having conversations with each other and myself, and then those those people who are interested in solving problems at a at a more intimate level in a one-on-one coaching or another group group coaching program, they'll matriculate to that. That's it. It it's I don't I don't overcomplicate it because people are just overwhelmed right now.

Pedro 32:24

Yeah, I love that that you've been there, done that, and tried all the things and but it's not like you stopped trying. You have uh the mindset of okay, what works for me and what doesn't work for me, right? And and it always goes back to alignment how you feel about it. So that's very interesting. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Luke, where can people find you and connect with you?

Luke Harlan 32:46

Uh the easiest is just to lukeharlan.com. That'll take you to my free school community. And in there there's resources and all the fun stuff where you can get to know me or just reach out because once you join the community for free, I'm gonna welcome you. And then you can have it and we just have a conversation about like what's on your mind, what do you want as far as value? Um, and it's very little, it's no salesy, it's just I want to serve people and I have the resources to do it, but I want that permission to provide those resources to people who are really interested. And that's really at the end of the day, I think we get forced like you need this, you need that. I don't know who you are. I know the problems I've had, I know the problem my clients have had, and if that resonates with you and you're looking to get unstuck or overcome some of the those those things that we have, the procrastination, the self-doubts, imposter syndrome, or just some strategy. I've been there, they've been there. So if that's interested, great. I just want permission to serve you and not force something on you that you don't need because that's not my role in life. It's like, you know, that's the way I look at it. So lukeharlan.com uh will take you to that school and the school groups.

Pedro 33:47

Mindset mastery. Okay. You know, there were a few things you shared today that really stayed with me, Luke. I'll say like that. I mean, the wake-up call, right? And the leukemia uh patient donation that you you were doing. I mean, that puts things into perspective. I think that's so powerful. Sometimes we take things for granted in life, and sometimes we need a wake-up call. Simple as that. And I think that's very, a very powerful reminder, you know. I love the fact that you're so open or look so vulnerable. I think that's such an asset for a true coach. I would put it like this. You know, when I asked you about when did you felt the shift in the business from helping people to building a real business, you're like, I'm still not sure I'm already there, you know. And I love that answer because that puts you into a growth mindset. You're you're still trying to improve, you're still trying to refine your message, refine your tune, get going. So I think that's very interesting. The reminders you gave also about having a coach, being part of a mastermind, improving yourself. You're still in the journey, like everyone else, just your coaches or your clients, or however you want to call them. And I love the ripple effect on their own pawn. You mentioned, um, at the end of the day, you want to impact more people, right? That's the money is uh and the financial piece is important because means to an end, right? And if you're not generating revenue, you have a hobby. And if you have a hobby, you're not gonna be able to impact people. At the end of the day, that makes a lot of sense. I really like that, but the intention is there. As a last highlight, I would say the nobody wakes up and says, you know what, I need a life transformational coach for me. And I get that, you know, and I I would say this this is such an important piece of marketing and positioning because at the end of the day, it's a hard sell to say I'm selling confidence. And I had a guest, and she told me this. She was like, hmm, I'll help you on the bottom line of your business. You're gonna be more profitable and all of that. But in reality, you're gonna stop sleeping in the couch. You're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna get your life back also. But that's not an easy an easy sell, and I get that. But yeah, I would say this is my long way of saying, Luke, I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you you being here and sharing so openly today, okay? It was great having you on.

Luke Harlan 36:05

Oh no, it's been an honor. Thank you so much for giving me the the opportunity to just kind of share what I'm doing and trying to help more people. And we're, you know, it's like what's the expression is just taking imperfect action instead of perfect inaction. And I think that's something that a lot of us struggle with uh because we live in our own minds and we're just our harshest critics. And the only thing I can say to people is just like, just start doing and start learning. You're not gonna be great. You're gonna crawl, stumble, and fall. But that's how we all learn to walk and run. And I just say if you have a passion into something that you want to deliver to the world, just start doing it, and then you'll figure it out along the way. Just be open and raise your hand to say, hey, I need help, because there's so many people like yourself giving an opportunity of a platform who want to help on other people. I think we live in an environment that we just want to help other people. And so if you have a skill, then then share it. And then ask other people to help you share it. And that's just how the world moves, in my opinion. And it doesn't have to be overcomplicated.

Pedro 36:58

I love that. It's the framing that changes, it's not about salesy or tactics, it's about serving. I love that reminder. Then again, great having you. It was an honor on my end too. So appreciate you, Luke. Thank you.

Davis Nguyen 37:12

That's it for this episode 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 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 join purplecircle.com.