Finding WHO You Are as a Business Owner ft. Dr. NaTasha Jordan

If everyone in your life woke up tomorrow with amnesia, how would you introduce yourself?

If you were forced to strip away the titles, "Health Coach," "Founder," "Mother," "Wife", who would be left? In this episode, Valerie sits down with Industrial-Organizational Psychologist Dr. NaTasha Jordan to dismantle the deep-seated identity traps that keep high-achieving coaches stuck, underpaid, and overwhelmed.

We dive deep into the psychology of pricing, exploring why so many talented wellness professionals struggle to charge high-ticket rates despite their expertise. Dr. NaTasha reframes "Imposter Syndrome" not as a character defect, but simply as a gap between your confidence and your skill set, and she reveals exactly how to close it.

Whether you are a new coach afraid to ask for the sale, or a 7-figure founder hitting an "autopilot" bottleneck and feeling resentful of your own business, this conversation will force you to rethink how you lead.

In this episode, we cover:

• The "Amnesia Test": A powerful framework to define your core identity separate from your business roles.
• Pricing Psychology: Why you feel guilty charging for your services and how to build the conviction to raise your rates.
• The Imposter Syndrome Reframe: Why you don’t need to be "perfect" to get clients life-changing results, you just need to be 10% ahead.
• Client Red Flags: How to identify an "uncoachable" client early and the courage to fire them.
• The 7-Figure Bottleneck: Why running on "autopilot" creates resentment and how to audit your business for true alignment.
  
  CHAPTERS: 
  00:00 Intro 
  00:43 Meet Industrial-Organizational Psychologist Dr. NaTasha Jordan 06:20 The "Amnesia Test": Who Are You Without Your Titles? 
  13:16 How to Charge What You Are Worth (Stop Undercharging) 
  18:42 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: You Are Not a Fraud 
  24:47 Abundance Mindset: How to Stop Competing with Other Coaches 29:08 Red Flags: When to Fire a Coaching Client 
  35:45 From Solopreneur to CEO: Breaking the "Autopilot" Trap
  41:27 The Courage to Pivot Your Business Model 
  46:34 Outro

Resources Mentioned:

• The Wellness Vault: Juggling meal plans, guides, and social content? Wellness Vault is your all-in-one solution. Get customizable meal plans, client-ready guides, and social media graphics you can brand as your own.          Start your 7-day free trial: https://wellnessvault.com/
• My Automation Secret: Still manually answering the same DMs every day? I use ManyChat to save hours and focus on real coaching.
  • Try ManyChat: manychat.partnerlinks.io/rdusc38lput5-wki14

Connect with Dr. NaTasha Jordan:

Dr. NaTasha is an Industrial Organizational Psychologist who helps high-achievers in rigid systems reclaim their personal sovereignty.

• Website: https://stan.store/drnatasha
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drnatasha.j/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnatashaj/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theiopsychologist

Connect with Valerie:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/v.feghali/
• Website: https://wellnessvault.com/

Support the Show:

If you loved this episode, please leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Your feedback helps us reach more coaches and continue to provide value for your business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The coaches that win, the coaches that are successful, are those who lean into their conviction. But who are you? But we really need to understand who are you? Because from that center, everything else is going to determine what you do, why you do, where you do, how you do. If everyone tomorrow woke up with amnesia, how would you introduce yourself to that person?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome to the Fuel Your Flow podcast. I am your host, Valerie Figali, physical therapist, turned software CEO and business coach for health and wellness coaches. We are going to be talking about all things health and business. They might be more closely related than you think. So let's go ahead and get into it. Dr. Natasha, thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yes, thank you so much for having me, Val.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So you and I met because I am part of a mastermind and you actually came in as a guest multiple times to help us really figure out who we are as leaders. And that was really empowering for me to know, you know, how I lead best, how to step into my strengths or my power moves, and how to really show up as the best me inside of my business. And I'm so grateful for you in that way. So tell me a little bit before we get started, just about what it is you really do and from the beginning, maybe even from childhood, how you got started in this journey to where you are today.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, of course. So I'm so happy to be here, by the way. So thank you so much for having me, having me on. My journey is one that I would say is not very conventional. I've been a person who always I want to do what everyone else is not doing or figure out a way how to pull things together. And so early on um in my career, I knew that I wanted to go into the field of psychology. Um, but I ended up going into the military before um I took that route. I was in the United States Air Force where I did supply. Now, the beautiful thing about supply is I see it kind of like a brain because you have to figure out how to put different things together in order to get this product out the door. Or in my case, when I was in the military, get it out of the warehouse for the planes, uh, the B50T bongers that I was uh responsible for. But um I decided um once I uh married my husband and and was pregnant with my son that I really wanted to continue to pursue my degree, but I also wanted to be a mom. And I knew that inside of the military, that was going to be a very limited um opportunity to do that. And what I mean by that is I still would have had to deploy, I still would have had to, you know, be away um from my son, but I just knew I wanted to be a mom. So I made the decision to get out of the military, moved to Guam with my husband, who is currently in the military as well, and I went to school, uh, full-time student, full-time mom. And then something about psychology just kept pulling me in. I really wanted to understand why people do the things that they do? What is it about their brain that makes them, you know, we're looking at the same information, but we are interpreting it completely different and we're taking different actions. And so um, with that little spark, I decided that I wanted to um get my master's in psychology, get my PhD. But there was a specific type of psychology that I was interested in, which is industrial organizational psychology. And that part of psychology, it uses, of course, the principles. You become a psychologist, but and you use the principles of psychology, but you're really looking at the business. We spend about a third of our life at work, whether that's building a business or working at someone's business, we are constantly working. And so if that's gonna be the piece that gets us the life that we want, the business that we want, um the teams that we build, the impact that we want to have on not only ourselves, but society as a whole, on our country as a whole, on the world as a whole, that's where I really wanted to spend my time when it came to the discipline of psychology. So through industrial organizational psychology, pursuing that particular um type of psychology, I just really started to dive more into um how people make their transitions in work, outside of work, and specifically with the military community is what I did my entire dissertation on. And I was looking at what are the things that inside of the military, and let me back up a little bit. Inside of the military, a service member is decorated with, you know, everything on their uniform. When that person walks into the room, you know exactly who they are. But when they leave out of the military, I mean they walk in Walmart, who cares who you are, right? You're stripped of sort of those things who made you who you are. And I found it so interesting that as service members, we are able to operate with PTSD, high stress, you know, even um, you know, just a lot of different things that we're dealing with internally. We're able to do really well inside of the military with that. But the moment we step outside of the military, the moment we hand over that active duty ID card, that uniform that tells everyone who we are, we start to struggle. You know, uh suicide rates go up, depression rates go up, homelessness rates go up in the military community when they make that transition. And so I was very curious about that. And what I found was Val is that it's not unique to the military. It's unique to those of us who work. If we spend a third of our life working and we start to tie our identity into our businesses, our ability to do an output, working for other businesses, when we start to do that, when it's time for us to evolve or make another transition, we really struggle. You know, if we have to give up some of those things or change some of those things inside the business because our identities are so wrapped up into the things that we do. And so that is a long way of saying my expertise as an industrial organizational psychologist, up until this point, my goal and my focus is really to look at the person who's running the business, who's leading the business, um, and help them to identify and understand who they are. And using my track record of being in the military, being a mom, um, being someone who's worked in corporate. Um, I worked at a one of the lar top global marketing agencies using all of those skills that brings me to today and helping business leaders to really unpack that so that they can build a business, grow a business, even scale a business, whether that's internally or externally, um, to something that really supports the life that they want to live.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

So some of the work that you and I have done together recently that, you know, goes off of that is that you asked me to literally like strip away what I do for work, you know, even my role as a mother, basically all of my roles and figure out who I am from a core level, what I would want to be doing, how I, you know, I get my energy essentially. And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how you tangibly do that with your clients. Cause I remember when I first got this assignment and we were first meeting as a group, and I just sat there quietly the whole time and I'm listening to other people kind of unpack it. And I'm like, I got I am a blank slate. I just felt like I did not have any idea even where to start when I took away all of those things that I feel like kind of make me are my identity or are tied to me right now. And you helped me dig deeper and figure out like, yes, those things are important to you, but this is who you are, this is what you would be doing, this is how to find alignment. And so, can you help me or help our audience determine a good place to start with that?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Let me give the context of why I think that that's so important and why I have arrived as if I cannot, when I'm working with a client, if I cannot help them figure that part out, it will literally change the trajectory of the engagement. And here's why. Um, during my five years in corporate as a vice president at the global marketing agency I was telling you about, what I found was that when a lot of clients, and I'm talking about, you know, you're talking about Pepsi, you're talking about uh Michaels, you're talking about some really big brands, even LinkedIn, that were coming to us for specific marketing help, right? You know, I need a marketing strategy, I need a branding strategy. How should we approach social now? We're in the digital age, we're in the social age. What does that look like? The algorithms were changing. They really wanted to talk about those tactical things. What do we do? So even large brands are asking these types of questions, right? But what I realized was, and this was in the um uh when we were doing the in the mastermind uh session, was Simon Sinek, I think, has done an amazing job of start with why, right? And we do start with why, but I think the part that is missing, not just for those bigger brands, but also for my my executive clients that I was working with while in corporate, was but who are you? We can start with why, but we really need to understand who are you? Because from that center, everything else is going to determine what you do, why you do, where you do, how you do. That question that I asked, which is who are you, aside from the roles, the titles, even like you said, mom, business owner, community builder, whatever you want to call it, the reason why that question is so important is because even some of the largest brands that are making decisions that impact our lives on a day-to-day basis needed to answer the question about who they were because that's what's going to drive their values. And so when we dwindle that down to the individuals that work within these brands, even your own brand or the um our the audience's brand, when we dwindle it down to you, where every single decision that is going to change the trajectory of this business, who are you? When we can answer that question, when we can get an understanding of what that is, it changes up how we approach the type of work that we're doing, how we approach the type of teams that we're building, how we approach the type of products that we are serving to our customers, and honestly, the type of customers that we're even attracting. And I think when we do it for so long without knowing who we are, we go five, 10, 15, 20 years not knowing who we are, we then wake up one day. Is this building business really fulfilling me? Is it really helping me to, is it really supporting or helping me build a life that I know it is that I want to, that I want to build? And then before we know, we might even be resenting it, right? We might even be just frustrated about should I change this up? Should I eliminate it all? Should I throw it away? Should I scale it? You know, we find ourselves starting to do more when we don't just sit and just get an understanding of who am I? And so let me go back to the the very specific question that you're asking, which is how do you do that? And I really do think it's as simple as if I were to take away everything that identifies you externally. If I were to take all those things away, if I were to strip you of all the titles, just like the service members, if I strip you of all your medal of honors, your accolades, if I stripped you of all of those things, what do we have left? There's no more wife, there's no more, you know, business owner, there's no more mom, there's no more daughter, there's no more community builder, none of those things exist anymore. Who are you? And one way or one thing that you can start with is which is the question that you and I got to, which is if everyone tomorrow woke up with amnesia, how would you enter, how would you introduce yourself to that person? So I'll stop there because I don't want to ramble, but that's what I would say is how where you can start with that.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

And one of the questions you asked me too is what would you be doing? Like if you could it's just basically start all over again, like so sad to say, but like, no family, no, you know, no business, no nothing. How what would you do today? Because it gives you joy, right? Because it brings uh, you know, it fulfills, it fills your cup, essentially. And so that was that was a good question for me to kind of wrap my head around like, wait a minute, like what do you mean? Who am I? Who like what what does that question mean? And then I was like, oh, okay. If I can think of it from like an more action perspective, it helps me start to narrow down, like, okay, these are the things that are important to me. This is why I'd be doing that. And even if it didn't get paid for it, right? You mentioned that too. Even if you're not getting paid for it, what would you be doing?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, that I think those those are the those are the two starting questions because a lot of us think more logically, right? We think more objective. And those two questions that you're alluding to was the first one was if you could do something for the next six months, knowing that it was going to fail, what would that thing be? And if you could do something for the next year and you weren't paid in money, accolades, you know, pat on the back, you got nothing from it, but you would still do it, then what would those things be? And I think it really flips on his head the positive way of Bell's question, which is like if you had endless resources or if you knew the next thing you would do was succeed, what would you do? I really think it humbles us. Why do we do the things that we do? And who are we when we are doing those things? Like, what is the thing that when you do it, you just feel like this must be heaven? It must, you know, it must be without the titles and without the roles. It's a really, really powerful way to look at that.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

So kind of because I know you work with a lot of top achievers, high achievers, and you help them really lead their businesses, right? And and grow their businesses. So I do want to kind of like flip the script on that a little bit and say, okay, a lot of my listeners, a lot of people who will be on today are going to be purpose-driven business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs that are really working for themselves. And a lot of them are health coaches. And what's happening right now with this particular group is that they're doing a lot of work for free or for a very low cost because they almost feel like it's their duty or it's their, you know, um, they want to help people. And people will come to them and say, like, oh, I can't afford that, so then they'll discount it, or then they'll do it for free. And so I've gotten some questions lately to say, How do I charge for my services? Like, how do I lead with authority in the things that I do love to do to help people, but at the same time feel comfortable with charging for my services? Can you speak to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah, absolutely. You know, this is something that even I as a person who are very, very giving, it's just only um, I would say, in the past maybe couple years where working, working in corporate and as a vice president and really understanding the first thing is very simple. If you are not charging, how are you gonna keep your lights on? Right? If you're not putting your prices in a place where it will allow you to be able to live the life that you want, then we're we're messing up somewhere, right? At the end of the day, and the one thing that I did really appreciate about being in corporate was like money doesn't have a it doesn't care whether you know you want to be nice or not nice, whether you just want to give back or not give back. Like money is money, and money allows you to be able to do the things you need to do to continue to serve the customers that you're serving. So the reason I say that is because maybe there is a group of people that you know you could never see yourself charging whatever your full rate is, right? But the thing about if you don't get the clients who will pay your prices, you're gonna be very limited in the time and the resources and the energy that you can contribute to that group that you actually want to help. So for I'll give you an example. I have a very specific rate for my services, whether that's with the coaching or if it's just these one-offs, right? And but there is a group, there's early careers and people who are on their climb that I know that cannot afford to work with me. So do I say then, Val, well, I'm well, too bad you just can't work with me. Or do I say, well, I can't really focus on, you know, my more exclusive clients like you, Val. I can't really focus on you. I really got to focus over here on them. And so I'm missing out because now I'm I can't pay my bills. I can't do what I need to do to support my business because I'm only focused on this group. But there is this world where I put my prices in a place where people that can afford it will will purchase it. They won't even think twice about it because they are not paying for you, they're not looking at, well, what am I getting for this? The people who are actually gonna pay my prices are looking at what is the transformation I'm gonna get when I come into contact with you. The more of those types of mindsets that I can get, the more I can use those resources to help the group, you know, that you know, I actually want to help. So that's one way of looking at it. The other thing that I will say is there may be something that you're thinking or believing about yourself that's not congruent with the skill set and capabilities that you have. And that's where we get imposter syndrome. I will forever and always say and die on the heel that I personally don't ascribe to imposter syndrome. I think it's so, I don't know who made up the word. I don't really like it, but if we just be, if we just strip it back, it truly is my confidence has not caught up with my skill set. So I've been doing this for 5, 10, 15 years, but I'm still unwilling. The prices that I was charging five, 10, 15 years ago, I'm still charging those prices now, or I'm still doing these steep discounts because I just want to help them out, Val. But what it is, I'm doing, I'm doing them a disservice because they're not really respecting the work that I'm getting. They're not really valuing what it is that I'm passing over to them. And who I want to work with is those that are going to take what I'm saying as a coach and actually go and get a transformation. Those are gonna be my biggest testimonials. If you come into contact with me, you can't get a transformation, either I'm not doing my job or you're not willing to do the work. And what I have found is, you know, regardless of what people may think, what I have found is those who don't want to make the investment into what I know the transformation that I can get them are not probably oftentimes are not gonna be your biggest and best testimonials because it's just a, you know, it's just kind of like a something that maybe they can do. I mean, she gave me like 50% discounts, so who cares? You know, it's this very passive way of looking at your services. But you want them to respect what it is that you give as a coach. If you want them to value the transformation that they are going to absolutely get with you, you have to price yourself accordingly. And again, the more you do that, the more you can actually help those people who might come along where you say, I really want to help this person. But if you keep doing that, you might water down the value that you're actually you're actually bringing.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

100%. And you read my mind on the imposter syndrome because that's kind of where I was thinking too about wanting to ask you because I just recently I had an email from someone who was saying to me that, you know, she's dealing with her own health struggles. And so she feels a little bit of this imposter syndrome of helping people with their health struggles in that same arena. And, you know, what I told her was you don't have to be this perfect model of health to help somebody else with their health. You need to know 10% more than them. You need to be on the journey. You can't be neglecting yourself, but you need to be on the journey, on the path. But you don't need to be this picture perfect thing just to get somebody else a transformation. Um, and so I think that that too can get in the way in in business too. I mean, I will openly admit that there are seasons where I'm like, oh my God, I don't know what I'm doing, right? When and we start a new initiative and I'm like, I've never done this before. And so for a podcast, for example, we started this podcast recently and I'm figuring it out as we go along. And so I think that, like you said, people get so stuck in their head that they've never done it before, that they're not the best at it, maybe they can't help other people through it. But a lot of times when you are in those more beginning stages, I don't want to say a total beginner, but when you're not too far off from where your customer is, you have a very good memory, a lot of empathy, a lot of understanding of where that person is in their life. And sometimes you can actually be a better coach than somebody who's 10, 20 steps ahead and has kind of forgotten what that feels like. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Oh, 100. What you are hitting on, which is what makes me passionate about coaching. I think the world, the industry of coaching is every anybody can be a coach now. I want to tell you exactly. So for your audience who's listening, the coaches that win, the coaches that are successful, are those who lean into their conviction. And what I mean by that is they are taking their lived experience. They have gone through something. And to your point, Val, they are able to talk about it in a way that somebody who's just being a motivational speaker and decided to become a life coach does. Okay. When you speak from conviction, when you decide that these stories that I have lived in my life, which goes back to what we were talking about earlier, when you know who you are, meaning I'm not ashamed of the life that I've lived, right? If we could go back and talk to our 15-year-old self, we would run circles around that girl. I would run circles around my 15-year-old self and I would make her sit down and you're gonna listen because I've lived this life, right? That's how we would talk. When we are across from a client who's coming to us because they are looking for a transformation, how they're going to get that transformation is by sitting across from somebody who is living out of and who is living in their conviction. They're not speaking from theory, they're not speaking from motivation, they're not speaking to just make you feel good. But there's now, this doesn't mean, let me caveat it by saying it does not mean, you know, Val, I'm gonna sit across from you and tell you all of my trauma. I'm gonna dump on you, right? Like that's not that's not what I mean because at the end of the day, I'm in a position of authority, I'm in a position of a leadership in the Coaching engagement and my job is to sit and to listen and to help you get this transformation. But the the coaches that I know that are successful, which is why I can say, Val, you are successful, I'm successful in doing this coaching, you know, in our coaching space, is because we are not afraid to speak from conviction. I have a story, and how do I use that story? Because I just heard some things that, you know, maybe I was stuck in a particular place with my health as your um particular uh one of your coaches, or maybe I was able to get over a particular hump and you know, it might have taken me a year, but those types of things that we lean into, we're able to help that person because we haven't walked that life. It is very hard if you have not walked the life, if you do not have a uh a place of understanding, it is very hard to sit and try to help somebody through those things because so many people are turning to coaching. It's not, we're not coming from a place of scarcity anymore. We can come from a place of abundance and say, you know what? I have not walked through that in particular. And I'm hearing some needs that you have. I can probably get you, you know, to this, but I really think you need to go talk to Val, who is more of an expert in this space based on what it is that you're sharing with me. We have to be willing to understand who we are, to walk out who we are confidently, and be able to really shed ourselves an imposter syndrome, shed ourselves of all the doubts that we have, because our clients are gonna sniff that out. And that's gonna make them kind of shrink back and maybe not bring their full selves to that coaching engagement, the thing that we need them to do in order to get them to on that transformation. So I think you are spot on with that piece.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah. And I think a good point too, and this to kind of shift this conversation too about kind of collaborations. You talked about maybe I'm gonna refer them to this person because I can only take them this far, or they're not dealing with exactly what they thought they were coming to me with. It's really something different. I may need to refer them out. And like you said, this place of abundance, I think a lot of coaches who are just getting started feel that they are like competing with other coaches. I get this all the time. There's so much saturation and everybody else is doing that. And it's that's just a mindset. It's truly just a mindset. There are, if you come from that place of abundance where there are enough customers for all of us, and you start to build relationships in your arena, not necessarily, you're not necessarily bouncing referrals off to someone that does exactly what you do, but you might be bouncing referrals off of to somebody who does something very similar to what you do, but that will come back to you when we have this mindset that there are there's plenty for all of us. I think that really, really shifts the way that you lead and the way that you coach. And then can you talk to us about kind of how to build that mindset a bit?

SPEAKER_01 24:53

I think I as simple as it may sound, Valley, you and I both know this. It truly is knowing who you are. When you know who you are, your co you your coaching is gonna be different from my coaching. When I'm walking, I we literally have thumb prints here. I don't even know if the camera can see this, but we have thumbprints that there is no other thumbprint like this. If we started looking at ourselves like our thumbprint, then how I approach my coach, all of the coaching is the the foundation is the same, right? Like, you know, you sit, you listen, you do active listening, um, you ask, you know, uh good questions, leading questions. Um, you know, there's a way that the coaching, you know, if we go with ICF accreditation or, you know, some of those different accrediting bodies that are out there, there's a way that they teach us how to coach. So great, right? There's a way that you teach your crew how to coach. So great. But from there, Val, the thing that separates us, the thing that makes us all unique and helps us to think from a place of abundance is looking at ourselves like our thumbprint. If I approach my engagement with who I am, my messaging is gonna be unique. I can't copy Tony Robbins, okay? Tony Robbins, I think is I'm five, too. I think Tony Robbins might be like six. He looks like a giant. You know, he has a deep voice. You there are so many things that are different about myself and Tony, right? But I guarantee if I brought Tony in, or if he brought me in to work with his clients, they're gonna be different things that we bring to our clients that those the same person can walk away from both of us just mind-blown, just complete transformation. Because the thing that we are desiring is not that if I'm better than Val and my model, my framework, my co-it's not that. It's that what I'm bringing to this engagement is fully myself. And what this person needs, based on what I heard, based on my discovery call, based on the needs of this person, based on that, I either I either have realized that who I am, I know that I can help them. And I'm confident in that. That's shedding myself of the doubt and the scarcity mindset and the you know the imposter syndrome, and deciding that I'm going to pick up and put on me a place of abundance, a place of who I am, a place of transformation. This person needs help. I don't have time to worry about is Val's question better than my question? Is her way of saying that better than me? I'm gonna say, wow, Val can she could kill it doing that. I love that. I just heard one of my clients, they're getting to this space where they need help, you know, more in the health space and transforming their life in that capacity. And I mean, I can I can do some things there, but I think we've reached our limit here. We've had about 10 sessions. I think you're good. I now want to introduce you to somebody who can really help you open up in this side of their life. So I say all that to say, Val, and just to put a nice little bow on it because I really get passionate about this. But if I know who I am, I know where my limits are, and I know where I'm limitless. But I also know what Val can do because Val knows who she is. And I'm going to now that I and because I know who I am, I know who Val is, I know what my client needs, and how selfish of it would be of me to hold on to that person because of my ego. You know, and so knowing who you are, knowing who this person is in community, my network, and knowing I want what's best for my client, not what's best for what I think, because I don't want them to go over there or I think that this is my competitor. But I think if we get that mindset, even in a place, even if it is saturated, it doesn't matter because I'm walking in who I am, I know who Val is, I know who my colleague is, and I know what it is that my client needs to get them to where I know they need to be. So much more fun that way, too.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So when you see that that coaches or business owners are starting to work outside of their alignment when they're they're pushing in a direction that isn't fit for who they are, what are some common like symptoms for lack of better terms that you'll see?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

The first thing I will say, as a coach, you have a psychological obligation to do what's in the best interest of your client. You don't need the title of PhD, you don't need the title of psychologist, therapist, clinician, you don't need the title of any of those things. But if you have taken up the role of a coach, you have made an agreement mentally that I'm going to show up and do what's absolutely best for my client. I think the number one indicator internally that will let you know that you might be stepping outside of, you know, that realm and you're stepping into something that you don't feel quite comfortable with is when, you know, one way is, you know, maybe you're in a in an engagement with a client and you find yourself, how do I, I'll give a story. I'll give a story because I think it'll drive it home. I had a client who was very excited to sign up for for coaching. And the around the I do assessments because I want to build rapport quickly. So I used a couple of assessments to really get to who this person is, what they need, who they are, um, because we were only going to do about six sessions. During the second or third session, when I was trying to help this client really set some goals, there was a lot of pushback on just setting a goal. It doesn't have to be something elaborate. You know, I gave different examples and I'm just, I'm like, what is happening? No one signs up for coaching and doesn't want to achieve something, right? Like they don't want a transformation. I can't, I continue to like listen to myself, like, this is some odd pushback, you know, but let me just keep going. So by the fourth or fifth session, I knew I should have called it off the third session because the truth is, and Val, I don't know, you and I have never talked about this and we didn't pre-talk about this, but I I'm of the belief, the school of thought, that everyone is not coachable. And what I mean by that is not that they can't be coached, but it what I what I'm saying is is that they will get into a session and they will just push and push and push. You are coming together and they don't want to change in this moment. Maybe in this season of their life, it's just not what they they thought it will, it's what they needed. Maybe they saw other people get coaches, they, you know, for whatever reason, but when they get inside the sessions, they don't want to change. When they come back, they haven't done the homework, they haven't taken you up on some of the challenges, they haven't done what you need them to do as a coach in order to get them to that next step. So that's what I mean by not coachable. This person, I truly wanted to believe that they were coachable. It's just that maybe they're not understanding what I'm saying. By the fifth or sixth session, I just threw it out there and I said, it seems to me that when we're trying to come up with solutions, when we're trying to come up with alternative paths, um, that doesn't seem to be something you want to do. And coaching is designed to help you consider alternate ways to get you to where it is that you're trying to go. But in order for us to even consider the alternate paths, you have to have a goal. We don't know where we're going. And I'm not sure what to do with that. What do you think? And he finally said, Well, I really don't need coaching. I really just I really, I mean, I don't think I need a goal. I don't, I don't have anything that I'm trying to accomplish or that I'm really trying to do. So what are we doing then? Well, I just like talking to you. Oh. Sounds like he was asking for a date. Exactly. Okay, and I'm happily married, by the way. Happily married. But you, but where was I now? I know that may not be specific to, but I think it's still adjacent to what you're asking because when coaches, I truly believe if you're a true coach, there's something innate in you that gives you these red flags. That's what I meant by that mental obligation that you have. And by that fourth or fifth session, when I cannot get this person to land on a goal, to land on where are we going so that we can bridge the gap of where you are, where we're going, and what's in between that we need to work on. When I should have realized in that fourth session, I should have leaned in more to my gut, into that mental contract that I have and said, I'm not sure that I can serve you in the way that this coaching container can. And I really want you to take some time to go think about this is the way that coaching is set up, this is what it's designed to do. And I want you to think about if this is something that you want to pursue. I didn't do that early on. So it doesn't matter if it's if it's something more easy like that, or if it's something where, you know, maybe you start to see this person has more mental health issues. Maybe this you're a you focus more on um uh being in tune with your body, but this person wants to be more connected with external things. You know, know what your lane is, know who you are, know what it is that you're capable of. And when you start to see that, you get these little yellow flags in your brain about I'm not sure that I'm able to serve this person because I'm thinking about the transformation that they can or cannot get with me. You have to be willing. That's where you set ego aside, and you have to be willing to say, have a conversation like I did after six sessions. Based on what I'm seeing, we're not going down the path that I think is gonna best serve you. Let's talk about what we should be doing next. But that that might not be with me. I think having some of those real conversations, but again, without fully knowing who you are and being comfortable and confident in that place, you may miss some of those signs. And although I am confident in who I am, I miss the signs because I ignored what I stay true to, which is everybody's not coachable, but this person is an executive and they're very smart. And I I wasn't doing them any service. So have being willing to have that conversation early on when you get those yellow flags are important.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Okay. So it's like when you're feeling some of that resistance, either with a client or within maybe yourself. You that's when Yeah, okay, that's when it's time to like pay attention and maybe ask some, ask some questions to yourself. And then so let us know, because you work with a lot of seven and eight figure entrepreneurs. So I want to know, are there specific kind of bottlenecks that you see? Because I think a lot of coaches when they're growing their business or they're just getting started out with coaching, they think that, oh, once you once you make it to a certain revenue level or client level, that all the problems kind of disappear. That like you feel confident and that self, the imposter syndrome goes away and you know, all is good. Where that's not the reality. So can you tell us when you get to, when you see on entrepreneurs at that six and seven figure level, what are some of the bottlenecks that they are running into?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

They've ran the business the way that they ran it for so long that they haven't realized that they're on autopilot. And the very thing that used to fuel them and give them life and fulfill them is now draining their energy. And there's this resentment that's built up that they don't realize, they're not calling your resentment, but it comes out in things like, I just need a brand new team. Or we just need to go pursue a completely different product, or maybe I should just start another business, right? All of those things sometimes, it's not all the times, as you're as you're asking, sometimes it's taking a step back, getting an outside perspective, a coach, getting an outside perspective to really diagnose not just is my team dysfunctional? Is my business of uh bleeding revenue? Is my, you know, do we need new products because the algorithms have changed and my messaging isn't reaching who I thought it would reach? Sometimes it's taking a step back and diagnosing what has got me here. And are these the same way that I'm moving, is that going to get me to where it is that I'm trying to go next? If it's not, how willing am I in this moment to part ways with what I've always done? And that is oftentimes the most difficult part. For example, I have another story. I had a client to where they literally said, you know, I'm a high performer, I'm achiever, we're making, you know, you know, seven, eight figures, you know, easily on a quarterly basis. You know, we're just killing, I'm getting in these magazines and these uh product, you know, just their their brand was doing very well. But the one thing he said to me was, but my team I just feel isn't moving as fast as me. I feel that nobody else is getting what it is that I'm getting. And if, you know, if if they don't, you know, if they don't pick it up, I'm gonna stop apologizing for high standards. They need to just lift their standards. Well, after doing a 360 feedback and getting an understanding from the whole team, when they first all started together, so they've been in business, let's say 10 or 15 years. I don't know the exact number. They've been in business for 10 or 15 years, and this highly successful person is running this practice. And he, over the years, he would just kind of let things go. If someone messed up on something, oh, it's okay. If they miss deadlines repeatedly, okay, we'll just get it figured out. Then it became, as they scaled, this one process that is causing us, you know, delays and you know, whatever it is, delivery to our clients or customers. I'm just gonna pond that off on somebody, somebody else figure that out. I don't fault them for being fast. Like you, you should, you know, when you're as you know, being a successful business owner, you move fast, you know, you're gonna reap the benefits of what those things are, but you don't realize the things that become on autopilot. And so after doing a 360 with this team that has been together for 10 or 15 years, they had got to a point where they were terrified of upsetting him. They didn't want to let him down, they didn't want to um ruffle any feathers because they were benefiting from, you know, some of the other things that they were being on autopilot, like, you know, they get Fridays off, or maybe they, you know, get they don't have to work through the holidays, whatever those things are. Specific to somebody that might be a solopreneur in their coaching business, or maybe with a smaller team, there are things that you probably have allowed that you haven't realized that are now starting to frustrate you, and you have to pinpoint those things to get yourselves back on track. And so, even with this particular client that I'm talking about, I have to come to him and say, based on what I'm seeing from the rest of the team, you want them to raise their standards, but they are terrified of letting you down. Are you willing to kind of level set everybody? Tell everybody, hey, look, this is what we've done over the past 10 to 15 years. There are gonna be some things that are going to change, and I'm I'm willing to listen to feedback so that I myself can change. He was not willing to do that. He just wanted them to raise his standards. He just wanted the processes to be fixed. Stop complaining to me, stop always talking about problems. Well, that's only gonna go so long before someone is just like, you know, I cannot, you know, be in an environment in this way. Um, so the point, the point that I'm making is as you continue to scale and grow, it's important to do periodic check-ins with your team, with yourself, just with business overall, just having someone come in. Maybe you don't put them on retainer. Maybe you just have someone come in and just diagnose the entire system, whether that's you, your leadership, your team, or your business, to just get an understanding of where are we today? Get that outside perspective to get that understanding. Um, because you might actually find it's just, oh, it's just something that we've always done. And there are alternative things that we can do, but without that outside perspective, you're sort of blind to what you know might what might be putting you in the in those spots in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

And I think a lot of people are afraid of what they might find when they do that, kind of like this gentleman who, you know, said, well, wait a second, that they didn't he didn't want that to be the case, right? And I think that a lot of solopreneurs, you can do your own audit too, even if you don't have a coach, like just sit down for a you know, block off a day where you just go through all levels of what you're doing right now. If you're doing one-on-one coaching, if you're doing digital programs, if you're offering workshops, like go through those things and say, like, is this meaningful to me as a business owner? Is this meaningful to my clients? Does you know what is really the revenue here? Is it worth the energy that I pour into these types of things? And I think a lot of times we and at any level of business, we are multiple times throughout the course of our business going to get to a point where we need to pivot. And, you know, I just had a client today who was talking about she wants to create a membership program and she's been working with me to create her membership program, but she doesn't have a lot of time. She sees one-on-one clients all day long. She also has a digital course that she's promoting and doing group coaching for that. And so she's feeling this lack of um time. And sometimes we have to step back and say, okay, well, if you're not enjoying the one-on-one anymore, or you're not enjoying if that's not, you're not going to be the best coach if you don't love it what it is that you're doing. So sometimes we change, our business changes, the way we coach change, and we have to pivot, sunset products, you know, close things down, maybe take a revenue hit for a short period of time in order to get back on track, doing the things that really light us up and fuel us and bring us a life that we desire. Um, so I think that point of kind of, you know, I bring that up because you were talking about how he was doing so things in a way for so long, and he it was time for that pivot essentially.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Right. Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah, not being afraid to do that. And yeah, it is scary. It is scary taking taking a profit hit. It's scary trying something new, but this is our life. Like you said in the very beginning, we spend what a third of our time, did you say, working?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

A third of our life, yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yep, a third of our life working. And so we have to we have to remember that this is what we are doing every day for the next X amount of years. And so if you're not loving it, like there's gotta be a a change, a pivot. And it's it's often yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say it doesn't mean you have to throw in the towel with everything you're doing, it's just an adjustment.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

I l I love the adjustment. It's asking, like you said, like doing that self-audit. Why am I not enjoying this? What is it about it? Is there what what would if if I could even doing in visioning exercises, which many of your your coaches probably do with their clients, but it's like pull out your vision board, pull out, just go and dream, go get inspired. What would this need to look like for you to enjoy it? You know, might even be some of those questions. Because again, I truly think it goes back to when you know who you are, when you are fully embodying that, when you can answer the question, who am I? Then the way that the current model of this coaching program is set up, or how you're even delivering the service, or the type of it might even be the type of clients that you're bringing in. Maybe you outgrown them, but taking that time to do some of those self-assessments, I think is some of the most powerful work that you can do. And I say this all the time, I really need to coin it at some point, but you have self-awareness and you have self-intelligence. All of us are so self-aware. We have all the information, knowledge, skills, abilities in front of us. We know what got us here. We know all of these different things. But do are we self-intelligent? Meaning, I'm able to take all this information, do that self-awareness exercise of understanding who I am, what I like, what I don't like. And are we able to take that information and actually create something new from that and actually activate in a different direction with this new, these, this new awareness that I have? Sometimes we just like, we sit in the comfortability of just being aware, but not taking the next step to what you're talking about, Val, which is okay, let me activate this, let me use the intel and let me actually activate this. Go and test and try. I might fail, I might mess up. It might not be exactly what I wanted, but the desire, the willingness, and the bravery to go that route, to go from awareness to the intelligence piece and activate, I think is one of the most powerful things you can do, especially in an industry where you are constant, people are constantly coming to you for to help them with their problems, fix their emotions, fix what's going on in their lives, and you're you're constantly trying to help them get in a different direction. Those things can be taxing. And so even assessing your own self, your own psyche, your own mental, so that you can be sure you're not also adopting the thoughts and ideas of other people is also another powerful thing that the audience could do as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

And I think that's a beautiful place to stop. Thank you so much. Dr. Natasha, how can we, how can somebody get started with you? Where can they go to find you and to start working with you?

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Yes. So stand.store um slash dr Natasha. Um, if you want to go, I have some free guides on there. Um, if you're interested in just going to find out information um and maybe getting your own 24-hour reset, you can go on there and um access that. And then of course across the socials, drnatasha.j um on Instagram and then um the IO Psychologist on on TikTok. But also, um, you know, uh if they reach out to you and have any questions of uh that will work as well. But it has been such a pleasure being here with you all today. And um I hope you all get the transformation that you need from this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Thank you so much. You are the greatest. I will talk to you soon. I hope you enjoyed our conversation from today. Any links we discussed will be in the show notes below. Also, we would be incredibly grateful if you would leave us a five star review. This helps us keep the podcast going so that we can continue to provide value for all of you. I hope we see you on the next one.