Stop Chasing Success: Lessons from Iva Bontrager

In this powerful episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Pedro sits down with Iva Bontrager, a neuroscience coach and emotional health consultant whose journey is as inspiring as it is transformative.

From launching her first business at just 14 years old to navigating personal burnout and ultimately stepping into her true calling, Iva’s story is a testament to resilience, growth, and purpose. Although she initially focused on coaching middle-aged women in transition, her work has evolved significantly. Today, she primarily supports high-achieving leaders—both men and women—who are outwardly successful but internally struggling with pressure, burnout, and a loss of authentic identity.

In this conversation, Iva opens up about the pivotal moments that shaped her career, including the burnout experience that pushed her to finally say “yes” to coaching in 2019. She shares how her niche wasn’t something she perfectly planned from the start, but something that revealed itself over time through real client experiences—proving that sometimes, clarity comes through action.

Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iva-bontrager/
Website: https://ivabontrager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ivabontrager/

Transcript

Iva Bontrager 0:00

So just to backtrack a little bit, I started out focusing on middle-aged women, but that is no longer my focus. I actually coach primarily men, which has been a really interesting transition. Uh I mean, I there's women that I coach as well. So I'm both men and women that I coach. And that common denominator of middle-aged women has been removed. And it is a wide variety. But common denominators, they're high achieving leaders who need support. So I just wanted to clarify that.

Davis Nguyen 0:28

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 1:00

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Iva Bontrager, a neuroscience coach and emotional health consultant, whose journey from starting her first business at 14 to helping her son overcome autism has shaped her unique approach to transformation. What sets Iva apart is her focus on helping accomplished leaders who are secretly sacrificing their peace while chasing success, wondering if they're truly leading authentically or just performing for the next win. Iva combines her expertise in neuroscience with deep faith to help clients break free from the burnout cycle that traps even the most successful professionals. Her message is clear. No matter how hard it gets, you can live fully out of who you're called to be while maintaining both achievement and inner peace. Welcome to the show, Iva. Thank you.

Iva Bontrager 2:04

Thank you for having me.

Pedro 2:06

Yeah, great to have you. You know, I like to backtrack a little, back to the rewind a bit, you know, the origin story and all that, 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. Right. So when was that for you?

Iva Bontrager 2:24

Yeah, so that when I fully said yes to pursuing coaching was in 2019. But the first time I became inspired to become a coach was back in 2012. For the first time ever, I was introduced to life coaching. And the benefit that I received from the person who coached me was phenomenal. It was life-changing for me. And I remembered thinking in that, wow, this is such impactful work. Like, is there a way that I can do this? Because I just felt so drawn to it. But for various reasons, I just kind of always pushed that to the side and kept doing what I was doing until finally in 2019, I personally had hit burnout in the career that I was in and just knew I couldn't sustain that much longer. And I just knew I needed to make a shift. And so that was when that kind of niggling dream in the background started to surface a little bit more. And I started to ask those questions like, Can I really do this? Can I really become a coach? And yep, 2019 I said yes, and I dove dove in and haven't looked back since.

Pedro 3:29

So okay. So 2012, you felt inspired. Then 18, you had the burnout, and 2019, we're talking about the start of the coaching practice itself. Now I want to understand one thing. Like, when did it shift from I'm helping people, I'm a coach and all that, to I'm building a real business around this? You know, I'm not sure if it's the first invoice, the first paying client, but there is a moment for every coach that it sometimes it just clicks. Now I'm a business owner, you know? What was that?

Iva Bontrager 4:04

Um, that's a really interesting question. Because I've been a business owner most of my life, I think there's always been that component of recognizing that I'm building a business. I'm not just coaching, I'm building a coaching business. But initially it was really interesting because, like I said, I've had so much experience building businesses. But when I first dove into the coaching realm and started to build my coaching business, I was really challenged in finding clients. And that was new for me. Had not experienced it to that level before. And so it really required me to lean in and develop my skills around building a business in the coaching realm. But I think I've always seen myself as a business owner primarily, for sure. The work that I do is very impactful. And, you know, I'm called to the work for sure, but I'm also very clear that I'm in it to build a, you know, a very profitable, thriving business as well.

Pedro 4:51

Nice. Okay. And after you got rolling, you know, who are the people that kept showing up? You know, you mentioned finding clients, but I want to understand that ones you realize, okay, these are my people, you know, this is my tribe. Because at the early stages, sometimes, I'm not saying this is what's your case. We see a lot of coaches trying to serve everyone at every moment, you know? And sometimes they niche down, sometimes they don't. I just want to understand from your perspective, if you ended eventually finding the people you can work best with, you know?

Iva Bontrager 5:22

Yes, that's a really good question. So I started out with my niche being middle-aged women facing transition, which was really where I was at personally. I'd been walking through that myself. My kids were at a phase where they were starting to do their own thing. I was starting to ask, okay, what about me? My life was all about my kids before and raising them and being an incredible mom and all the things. And then I was like, whoa, what about me? And kind of that, like, just not quite sure what to do, kind of spinning. And so my focus was really on that, but I didn't get a lot of momentum around that. That was not landing. And so I just really went with kind of whatever clients came my way. And over time, what became very clear was that I was actually seeing a lot of high-achieving leaders. So in the business realm, in the church world, you know, just various organizations of leaders of just coming my direction. And that was like kind of the common denominator was people who know how to produce results, but internally they're struggling. They don't have what they need to be thriving in every area of their life. And so that's really kind of what came my direction. And I had to know, like, I had to focus on like that. You know, hopefully avoid burnout, or if they do come to me and already in a burned out place, that, you know, they can heal and recover from that so they can lead sustainably. But also, it was interesting because I didn't see that, like, you know, many times as coaches, we coach out of our own personal experience. And I had totally missed that dynamic that I myself had experienced burnout and that process that I've gone through to heal from burnout and all of that. Like I can bring that into what I'm doing today with my leaders. And that was a totally like a piece that I missed when I was looking to niche down early on. I just didn't even think about that. But it's so interesting. I know I've heard uh one of my coaches before, she always says, your vibe attracts your tribe. And it's so true. Like I I've just seen that in my world to be the case.

Pedro 7:30

Okay. So middle age women facing transitions, basically. Now, how do they usually find you in the first place? You know, marketing-wise.

Iva Bontrager 7:40

So initially it started out just with word of mouth. I started to do some some promoting on social media, which had some fruit to it for sure. But once I started to get a client base and they were seeing results, you know, they were telling their friends. So referrals has been really the most profitable generator for me and getting the most clients has been through referrals up to this point.

Pedro 8:06

Okay, now let's pretend I'm one of those middle-aged women. Okay, I'm Pedra right now, not Pedro. Let's forget about that guy. And I was referred to you, right? And I'm like, hey, I was seems cool. I hop on a call, whatever that looks like. We see alignment in the call, right? We connect, you can see you can serve me, and I can work with you, and end up becoming a client, right? So walk me through the per from Pedro's perspective or a client, right? How does your coaching practice work?

Iva Bontrager 8:39

So just to backtrack a little bit, I started out focusing on middle-aged women, but that is no longer my focus. I actually coach primarily men, which has been a really interesting transition. Uh, I mean, I there's women that I coach as well. So I'm both men and women that I coach, and that common denominator of middle-aged women has been removed. And it is a wide variety, but common denominators, they're high achieving leaders who need support. So I just wanted to clarify that.

Pedro 9:07

Okay, great. Let's forget about the the Pedro stuff. I'm I'm Pedro. I backed Pedro. I'm a high achieving leader. I I just shifted completely right now. I'm a high achieving leader and I want to work with Iva. How does that work?

Iva Bontrager 9:20

Yeah, so typically once they've found out about me, they'll reach out to me and contact me. We get on a on a call and you know, I engage with what are they looking to work on. And the interesting thing is that many times when somebody comes to me, they've already heard about the transformation that their friend has experienced. So they're pretty open already to saying yes to working with me. So then we talk about what is it that they want to work on, what is it specifically for them, and then I walk them through kind of what my coaching pro program is like, and then they get to say yes or no. We we process through that and we go from there.

Pedro 9:58

Okay. I mean, your work seems pretty hands-on, right? So how do you think about, and this is a classic dilemma for the coach, right? Because sometimes they're wearing all the hats, and I love to ask this question like, how do you prevent, since you're managing a lot of wearing out a lot of hats, marketing, business development, the coaching practice, how do you prevent yourself from getting to burnout again? You know, the capacity dilemma, let's put it like that.

Iva Bontrager 10:25

Yeah, for sure. Well, I have very clear boundaries in place about how much I work, how many hours I work, and also typically on my calendar every quarter, I have a retreat scheduled so that I have downtime, making sure that I have space to restore, recover, refresh myself. And then I have in my calendar, it's like priority to have a date night with my husband on a regular basis, time with my family, like all of those kinds of things are first and foremost. And then my business is built around it. One of the things that I've had to learn is that in my business, there's always going to be something that I could or should be doing. And with the business brain, like I'm I'm very entrepreneurially wired. And so I'm always like my mind is always running about the things I could be doing. I'm dreaming about building and growing and all the things. And so just being okay with when it's time to shut my laptop down, when it's time to shut my phone up, when it's time to be done for the day, that just is put to the side. I can be okay with the unfinished things. And it takes, it takes a long time to get there. Like that's been through years of training and putting those boundaries in place. I mean, I still sometimes like, I'm not perfect in this because there's times where I'm like, I just want to keep working because I love to work. And because I work from home, it's really easy to have that crossover. So I'm not always, you know, really super diligent like I need to be. But having those things on my calendar first, like family time, a quarterly retreat, you know, date night with my husband, like those things as priority in my calendar really helps me pace myself and so that I don't just go back to working all the time and hit burnout again.

Pedro 12:03

So it's setting up the boundaries. And I get that. I work remote too. It's like it's sometimes it feels like we never left work, right? It's like not sure if you're agree with me, but I've I have this feeling sometimes. And like I'm I'm in my lunch break and I'm cooking or something like that. I'm just getting back to it. You don't go to a restaurant, you I don't go to a XYZ place, whatever. It's like you're in that space. And you know, I get that. You know, like but I I would love to tap into experience for one thing because I feel like it's such an important topic, you know, it's pricing. And I'm not talking about hard numbers, right? It's more about the mindset behind it. Like in the early days, feels like pricing, the coaching industry. There's a lot of self-worth tied to it. Like, am I charging enough? Am I charging too much? You know, that type of mentalities. Were there any lessons along the way that shaped how you landed where you are right now?

Iva Bontrager 13:01

Yes. I definitely started out underpricing myself. And one of the biggest challenges that I had to navigate was raising my prices. That was extremely hard for me to do. And so I would, yeah, definitely overcoming that. I think at the root of it is really, you know, just that lack of valuing what you offer for the client, like really looking at it through the lens of what kind of benefit do I provide for my client? If my client experiences the transformation that I that I'm offering and the end result for them, what's that going to provide for them? Whether it's a business owner that's freeing up extra time so they can be with their family more, or things are shifting in the organization so that allows it for their revenue to increase. I mean, whatever that benefit is for the client, you know, as a coach, I get to look at it from that perspective of what is this doing for my client and what's the benefit that they're receiving, and then look at the pricing through that. And I think that's super helpful. But definitely early on, what I've learned in the neurocoaching process for me personally was that rewiring of my beliefs. First of all, that I wasn't smart enough or that I wasn't qualified enough to do what I'm doing. And when that shifts and you know that like you can really deliver your client a result, that helps really in the pricing process as well.

Pedro 14:25

It's when you stop second guessing yourself, right? Because selling is it's all about confidence. And if you're not confident about dropping a number, you're gonna sound weird. The energy is not gonna be right. So yeah, 100% I get that. Now, Iva, I'm curious, right? Like where are you taking all this? You know, looking ahead. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring? Is there a next step you're extra step you're excited about?

Iva Bontrager 14:52

Yeah, uh, my next step for sure is developing a more consistent sales process, a funnel to help bring in um new clients. I I know I don't have that developed like I need to yet. So that's definitely my next, my next goal. And as far as from where I'm at currently and how I see it, I see myself always having some amount of one-on-one clients just because I love that work so much. I love, love, love the one-on-one work. But I also know that sustainable sustainably, I can't continue just to do one-on-one and still scale like I want to financially long term, definitely building out the group coaching side of things.

Pedro 15:28

Okay. You know, I feel like you're you're into neuroscience. You went through burnout. Like I have a full uh pos a full-time position, which is the podcast host, and I also am a career coach, right? So when you mentioned you love what you do, and you we were talking about capacity before, right? We're talking about boundaries. I feel like sometimes, I'm not sure if you're right there with me, but I feel like I get so energized doing the work. Like you mentioned, the one-on-one, it's harder for me to set up the boundary because I'm like, this is so much fun. This doesn't even seem like work, right? Do you do you feel like it? Because I feel that on my skin. My wife is like calling me out like, honey, I gotta work. And she's like, you know, you don't pretend that's like a hard thing for you. You know, she's just calling me out like that. Does that is that familiar for you?

Iva Bontrager 16:23

Oh, 100%. I am told so many people, I feel like I don't go to work. I just get to go have fun every day. And you're right, it does make it challenging because, like I said earlier, it's easy for me to just keep working, especially my office is at home. That crossover is so, you know, you could just stay in your office, no big deal, right? Uh but recognize that our human body has a certain level of capacity. And no matter how much you love your work, you will hit burnout if you don't put in good healthy boundaries and you know have healthy patterns in place for rest.

Pedro 16:56

Yeah, I think I have a toxic relationship in my head. It's more like if I feel like performance is getting a hit, I like I get kind of mad and I stop. You know, it's like, this is not really working out. I'm not at my best. So I I kind of stop. But I I get what you're telling me. It's like it's how if you're in a diet and you have some stacks of chocolate hidden, but you know where they are, right? It's so easy to tap into it, right? Yeah, it's like this is my office. It's my office, it's just a two steps away from my bed almost. It's like a hundred percent. I get what you're telling me. Yeah. Now, you know, you have a unique background there considering the coaching business, right? I see a lot of coaches that it's their first business, it's the coaching, you know. But that's not what happened to you. You already had past businesses. So I feel the need to tap into your experience for a second because people listening can really benefit from this, you know? And you've been in the game long enough to hear all kinds of business advice. Some are good, some are terrible. So, what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think that's overrated or misunderstood, you know?

Iva Bontrager 18:07

Well, unfortunately, in our world today, there's a lot of business advice. You go on social media and you can get bombarded with so much business advice. And I think actually that's the challenge right there. We've got so many different paths we could go, so many experts saying, do it my way, do it my way, this way works. If you just do this thing, this is what's gonna get you, you know, more clients, whatever it is that you're looking for. And so I think my best advice I can give is stay focused. Don't get distracted by all the noise, all the marketers trying to sell you their product, their program that's gonna get you to be profitable or have more clients, whatever that is. And just really stay narrowed in on what is working, identify what's working, and build on that. I mean, obviously, as you go, there's tweaks and there's things you can learn and grow in, but you got to be really narrow focused. The more that you can block out the noise of all the marketers, the more successful you're gonna be. Now, I understand there's wisdom in you know, learning and growing. If there's an area that you really are weak in and you need more expertise in, then go find a solution for that, but stick to it. Don't get sidetracked by all of the things that are coming at you all the time.

Pedro 19:16

So much noise, right? And it's like sometimes it's a contradiction. You're like browsing the social media, AI is dead, next post, AI is gonna take over, and you're like, oh my God, you start questioning reality, right? It's like, oh, am I the only one seeing this? Well, yeah, 100% get it. Now, on the other side, you know, I've a what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously, you know?

Iva Bontrager 19:41

I would say, you know, believe in the work that you're doing. When you are doing work that is meaningful and you are working like for coaches who are working with clients and you're seeing, you know, that you're making an impact on people's lives, you know, be present in that, like celebrate that. There's so much there that you can build on in, you know, being present with the work that you're doing. You know, we can get caught in like always the next thing, right? But there is something to be said about pausing and celebrating the success that you're seeing in your own organization, the success that your clients are achieving because of the work that you're doing with them. And that is such a game changer because if we're always in that place of survival mode, we always have to be on to the next thing. There's like this frantic energy, right? Versus being in that, like, I'm present, I'm enjoying what I'm doing, I'm clear-minded about the direction that I'm going with, you know, my clients, my business, like all the things. There's that's a sustainable level of, you know, you can build on that versus always in this frantic energy of like on to the next thing. I've done this now, now, check on, check on. Like you never get to learn how to really be present and enjoy the fruit of your labor. And there is something to be said about that.

Pedro 20:52

Wow. You know what? It sounds like and it looks like you have a camera here in my home because I am exactly like that. And my wife always calls me out. I'm always checking the next box. She's like, enjoy a little, you know. And I'm typical. I'm like, no, I have the next thing and next thing, and that's my god. Oh my god. I gotta I gotta I gotta we gotta talk more. I'm just gonna say that, you know. So thank you for that. That's such a powerful reminder. And I feel I I would love, you know, your your perspective on one topic. And I know we talked it about about that before when we first met, which is like AI, right? Because you're a business owner, you have a different mindset about stuff. You're like you're not you're not just trying to make coaching work, you have the mindset of a business uh you know owner. So you you see the full picture. So for I've talked with people that are trying to replace coaches entirely with AI on a chat bot. I've talked with people that were like, hey, I'm gonna replace the 20 coaches under me with AI. And I have people that are like, This is never gonna happen. There's the human component. So which side are you on? You know, do you feel like AI is more like a threat or is it more like a good thing for coaches?

Iva Bontrager 22:11

Yeah, I think it's depending on how you use it. I, you know, currently I'm definitely on the side of, you know, I think AI is a good thing. Uh I don't think that AI, I think in coaching, we still need that personal connection. There's still, you know, we've been in the the digital world for so long now, and AI has been a part of our lives. Now I think what we're starting to see is a shift for for people to really have that human connection. That's still a desirable thing. Now, I don't know what AI is going to do to our world in 10 years from now, but currently I'm saying like, I think that human connection is really important and vital. And I I'm also not afraid of AI at all. I have tapped into using AI to help me be more efficient, to build my business effectively. I'm not averse to using AI to help me be sustainable, to grow, to multiply, expand, all the things. I think the biggest challenge for me right now is that I've run into is a little bit of that franticness that I was talking about before. I can get in that with AI because it's always changing. And I'm like, okay, I just learned this and now it's doing this. And how do I catch up to that? And so even reminding myself, like, okay, yes, there's lots of opportunities there for AI and we can always be learning and growing, but not to get caught in that frantic energy of feeling like I'm behind, that somehow I'm missing out. Because I feel like that's kind of the vibe right now when it comes to AI, is everybody's like frantically trying to stay ahead of the game. And there's wisdom to that. We want to be wise in how we use AI and make sure that we're utilizing it in an effective way, but to really stay out of that kind of frantic energy of I'm somehow behind, because that's not going to help anybody. But that's been one of my challenges. I've found myself in this place of like franticness of my goodness, something else has changed and I've got to learn a new platform or whatever.

Pedro 23:55

I love that. Now, and if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Iva, where can people find you and connect with you?

Iva Bontrager 24:02

Yeah, so my website is iva bondtrigger.com. And on Instagram at I I'm at IvaBond Trigger. On Facebook, I'm an IvaBond Trigger Coaching. On LinkedIn, I'm Iva Bondrigger. So yeah, all the places.

Pedro 24:14

Yeah, we're we're gonna have all the links here in the description. That's not a problem. You know, um there were a few things you shared today that released a with me. I would say the 2018 event when you had your own burnout, and not just that by being vulnerable and open about that, but realizing down the road that you missed a piece, right? You missed that piece of marketing positioning component that could actually serve you so well, you know. I feel like that's a very important reminder. And also the the reminder you gave about staying focused. And I took a note here. Iva hates marketers. Well, not the first person, okay? I also don't love them. I'm not a a a super fan. And sometimes it's like they don't see the whole picture. And I'm gonna give you some examples. It's like we can get you leads first. Are they qualified? How can you affirm that if you don't even know how my business works? How can you you say that if you don't know who my ICP is? It's just a quick hook, you know, so you get or even if you're in Instagram and your ICP is, I don't know, LinkedIn, you know, but they don't even hang out there and they're trying to push you into Instagram or through Facebook, and you don't have potential clients there. So I love that reminder, you know, so uh so honest. And this is my long winded way of saying, Iva, that I appreciate what you do and I and sharing so openly today, at the end of the day, you know. So it was great having you on.

Iva Bontrager 25:52

Thank you for having me on. I enjoyed it.