Coaching vs. Coddling: How to Attract Clients who Pay...and Stay!

Hey there!

If your coaching is all about making clients feel good… you might be leaving money on the table.

Because let’s be honest, clients don’t invest in coaching just to be validated. They invest to get results. And the truth? The best results don’t come from sugarcoating or hand-holding.

They come from coaching that challenges, stretches, and expands them.

If you want to attract (and KEEP) high-caliber clients who trust you, stay for the long haul, and happily pay premium prices, your coaching has to go beyond surface-level encouragement.

🔥 Inside this episode, we’re diving into:

✨ The #1 mistake that keeps coaches stuck with flaky, non-committal clients

✨ Why self-trust > endless validation (and how to build it in your clients)

✨ The secret to making your clients feel seen, without creating dependency

✨ How to master tough conversations so your clients actually transform

✨ The kind of coaching that turns one-time buyers into lifelong clients

If you’re ready to coach at an ELITE level, so your clients stay, pay, and rave about you, this episode is non-negotiable.

📲 Had a lightbulb moment? Share this on your stories & tag me—I wanna hear what hit home!

💥 If YOU want to be the kind of coach who commands premium pricing with confidence… The Mind School Method is for you.

Join The Mind School Method HERE

Transcript

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All right, before we get into this episode, I need to just ask, have you been feeling stuck, uninspired, unmotivated or kind of a bit meh about life? Are you sabotaging yourself, overthinking or staying in your own way? Consider this your sign now is the time to change all of that, because the doors to level up your life are officially open, and this is your chance to join the hundreds of women who have completely shifted their mindset, unlocked their potential and created a life that actually excites them. This cohort is going to be next level, and I want you in it. Hit the link in the show notes, and let's do it now. Enjoy this episode. Konnichiwa. Hello again. Welcome back to the mind school podcast. I am coming to you today from my hotel room in Tokyo, and it is my final day before we go back to Perth tomorrow, and I'm excited. I'm so excited. I love the feeling. My husband and I were just saying, how lucky are we to be on this trip where we've had the time of our lives with amazing friends. I've kind of learned to snowboard. That's a stretch, but I've gotten better. I'm exploring an amazing city like life is incredible, and I cannot wait to get home. I cannot wait like I miss my dog, I miss my gym, I miss my routine, and I just love that feeling of that reminder, I suppose I spent my 20s just traveling and never wanting to come home. And it's such a nice feeling to be in a place where you love travel, but you're not actually leaving or escaping anything, because home is equally as good, and I'm really excited for coming home and settling into what feels like a real nesting stage, like obviously, for those of you who have followed my journey or listened to the podcast for quite some time, I am on a very long trying to conceive journey, but it feels like I'm getting answers. It feels like I'm getting to the root cause of things, and I haven't a whole plan for how to fix or alleviate problems. And I really feel like this year I'm going to come home, I'm going to fall into a nesting stage. We actually don't have any other trips planned, which is wild for us. So we sort of said Japan is it for this year, and then we'll just do a lot of camping, a lot of like being close to home, a lot of nesting. We're probably going to build a granny flat, so a whole home project, and just, yeah, I'm really excited for that wholesome nesting stage as well. So anyway, I digress. But what I wanted to talk to you about today is something that has sort of come up accidentally, because in my business world at the moment, we are going through a whole process of redesigning, a new website, a new brand, a new look, a whole new like there's just so much going on behind the scenes. And what this led to was I reached out to a lot of my one on one clients, and a lot of people who have worked with me really intimately or closely over the years, and we were just collecting testimonials, case studies feedback so that we could really put together what it's like to work with me. And one of these themes that I recognized, which was really, really cool actually, to see as a reoccurring pattern, was so much feedback was centered around how I give loving honesty, and I'm able to straddle that really delicate line between holding you to a higher standard and calling you forward to that high standard, but also creating a safe space for all emotions to be to be brought forward without judgment. And it's that really, really fine line which I see as a difference between coaching and coddling. And I think this is a really important conversation, whether you're somebody who is investing in a coach to help you find the right coach for you, or if you're a coach, yourself to know how to straddle that line, but also being a parent, also being a colleague, a team member, a manager, all of these things, it is such a delicate and fine line to know The difference between when to coach someone and when you're actually just coddling someone and essentially being an overpaid hype girl or an overpaid cheerleader. And at the end of the day, what I have found is that, particularly for coaches who really tend to fall into that woo girl energy, like yes, that was amazing. Yes, you can do it. Yes. This is so good, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Eventually, clients actually outgrow that, because they actually are paying to be challenged. They actually are paying to have blind spots pointed out. They are actually being paid to be shown things that they haven't seen before, or they're paying you for a new skill set. They're paying you in some way to be expanded and to invest money in someone who just hypes you up. Doesn't last too long, but in saying that, there is also a time and a place for when people just need a bit of hype. They need that confidence that they don't yet have in themselves. They need someone to reflect back to them their power. They need someone to boost them up. There is definitely a time and a space for that and a season in. Business where that might actually work, but if you don't know the difference, and this will come down to what kind of clients you work with, you're actually going to find that your clients won't have a long journey with you, because they won't be constantly expanded. And so if you ever feel like you're giving your clients all the support in the world, but they're still stuck. Today. We're sort of diving into that very fine line between powerful coaching and then unintentionally just coddling your clients, because one creates transformation, and the other actually just keeps them a little bit dependent, and then inevitably unchallenged and kind of bored looking for the next coach. So let's talk about what is coddling. When you are coddling someone, you are sort of over validating without guiding towards action. Everything is like, yes, you can do it. Oh, my God, so much hype. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you might even over validate when someone is doing something that actually doesn't align with. Let's say somebody, as an example, comes to you and wants to lose weight, and they fall off the wagon, they have a big binge, and they come to you and tell you, and rather than doing both, where you sort of validate, look, okay. That's okay. That happened. That's totally fine. Let's not go into a shame hole. However, let's look at what happened in those moments before. Let's look at how we can do something a bit differently. Let's actually guide you towards a new action. Let's sit with this discomfort for a little bit, because that's the difference. When you are coddling what often happens is you let clients stay in their comfort zone. You let people stay in their unhelpful cycles. You let people stay in their sabotage. You allow people's excuses, and you normalize it for them, and you even feel like you have to rescue them from their own discomfort. So this can play out in so many different ways, if you think about it, in parenting, if you are over validating a child for poor behavior, and because you don't want them to feel bad for their actions, you don't want them to sit in the consequences of their mistakes. You don't want them to sit in that horrible feeling of, oh, shit, I did something wrong, and I actually need to face this so you quickly rescue them from ever feeling discomfort. What actually happens in that scenario is you create children who don't know how to sit in discomfort, who don't know how to face themselves and do better, who don't. It's almost this unconscious belief that I don't believe that you can handle this discomfort, and so I'm coming in to rescue you and make sure you don't have to feel that. That doesn't actually create an empowered human. It doesn't create a resilient human. It doesn't create a belief within themselves that I can handle this discomfort, learn from it, grow and move toward action. So when you are coddling what I often find, especially, I'm going to say for coaches, but in general, this might play out in friendships. This might play out in romantic relationships. This might play out in your client. Client relationships. It plays out in different ways, but when you are somebody who overly coddles, overly valid, validates, overly rescues over validates people's unhealthy behaviors, sabotage cycles and those patterns, what often is actually happening is you have not fully transcended people pleasing. That can be the first thing, because it's uncomfortable to hold someone to a higher standard. It's uncomfortable to call someone out and say that wasn't quite right, let's do better. You can do better. I believe you can do better. It's not comfortable to say to someone that actually wasn't on you can do better than this, and let's do it together. I love you unconditionally. That actually creates sometimes a bit of friction, and that person may not respond well to that, and so if you can't hold the discomfort of friction, you will just lower your standards and your expectations for that person, so that you don't have to cop their discomfort, their pain, their hurt, their friction, their tension, which could be projected toward you. So that's why I often say incredible coaches, and the coaches that are being paid the most, I would say as a general theme, the coaches I pay, for example, 10s of 1000s of dollars for they are not the coaches that are just going, Yeah, well done. You did so well and giving me nothing to work on, giving me nothing that expands me or challenges me, the coaches who are doing really well and attracting really high quality clients who actually want to grow and can hold that discomfort, those are the ones who tend to have done a lot of work on their own, people pleasing and can hold a lot of projections. There have definitely been experiences. And I'm happy to say this because my clients will agree. I have had client scenarios and circumstances where I've actually called out something and said, Hey, this isn't quite good enough. We need. To do so much better. Let's say it is a marketing they've done. They've worked so hard on a sales page, they've worked so hard on their content, and I've come in and potentially pulled it to pieces in a loving way, but said, this actually isn't going to cut it. This actually doesn't say anything. This actually doesn't speak in your kind of language. And then that person is like, Fuck, I was so excited to show you, or like, fuck, that feels really shit. I thought that I'd done so well. And it's like, I know that sucks. And there's been so many scenarios there where, or even I've called out a client and lovingly said, Hey, this thing that you're judging this person for is something that you have actually been dealing with yourself. So this is a massive projection, and this is a you issue. You're projecting responsibility right now and to be the person that comes in with the loving, hard truths. Sometimes can be really uncomfortable, because you've got to hold what and you don't know, you don't know how people are going to respond to that. And so when you are a coddler, a rescuer, somebody who saves people from feeling discomfort, somebody who just can't sit in that friction zone. Sometimes it could be that you really need to work on that people pleasing part within yourself, because, like I said, eventually your clients are not going to feel expanded. They're not going to stay but also, when it's with your kids or your friends or whatever, you're actually not helping them to get to a place that you truly believe is possible for them. So in the long run, it's not a win. Win. Secondly, the other thing that can be happening for the coddler, the coddler coach, the coddler parent, the coddler human, is that it can be a real mirror for where you actually within yourself don't yet feel comfortable in discomfort. And when you can't hold discomfort, you will feel so uneasy in it that when somebody else is experiencing it, you will essentially just bypass it. Try really hard to problem solve. Try really hard to get them out of it, to rescue because it's a mirror for where you don't feel comfort in discomfort. And if you are going to be someone who consistently grows your business or has really connected, really meaningful relationships. You actually need to be someone who can hold discomfort. So this is a really cool way for you to explore. Where are you holding back from saying a real, honest truth, or holding someone to a high standard because you can't handle either your feeling of discomfort or their feeling of discomfort for what could happen as a result of that. So that's some food for thought. Now, before I move on to the difference between coddling and coaching, I want to also say, of course, it's really important sometimes that you do validate people's emotions, that you do hype them up, that you do show them you can do this. You're amazing. You're incredible, that you are giving them all of that positive praise, but not empty, positive praise when it's actually it's not meaningful. I sort of think about when I was a teacher, if I could not be asked I was an English teacher. Let's put it into this example, if somebody came to me with an essay draft that was so fucking bad, I almost and this happened all the time. This happened a lot. Sometimes students would come and they struggled so much with literacy, so much with stringing sentences together, so much with legibility, so much with spelling, so much with grammar, so much with comprehension, that it was almost impossible to know even where to start with the feedback for this essay, and the easy thing to do as a teacher, which is also the lazy thing to do, and not the loving thing to do, and not what I'm paid to do, would be to say, Yep, good work. Just fix up this spelling mistake and this spelling mistake, it's easier for me. They don't have to cop how bad it is. And so it feels, win, win. It's the easier option. But like, how would you feel if that was the teaching that your child was receiving because it was easier, because you because that teacher took the lazy option and didn't believe your child had it in them to improve? That's a cop out. And so that's where I want you to see the difference between over, gassing up, hyping up, giving empty feedback, praise, and all of that when it's actually not helpful. Now the difference between that and coaching is that coaching is where you actually you can hold space so you can still validate, you can still create safety. You can still create a container where people will come to you when they're fucked up or they need help, or they want some they maybe they want some gassing up. They want some hyping up. They need to be reminded of their power. You can hold that space, but you don't let them stay stuck. And when you are doing transformative coaching, you are not letting them stay stuck because you're always guiding them toward action. You're guiding them toward action by asking them powerful questions, and you're asking them powerful questions that challenge their beliefs, that help them to see things differently. You're asking them questions that completely change their whole perception of themselves and what is possible, and you're empowering clients not only to take ownership of their results, but to take ownership of their emotions. So. So rather than rescuing them and saying, Oh, don't feel bad. It's okay, this is great. You're amazing, you're incredible, you're saying, I know this fucking sucks. It's hard. It's really hard. I know it sucks when you've worked so hard and I'm still giving you more feedback, or I understand how fucking infuriating This is. Your business isn't where you wanted it to be, but right now, we're just not cutting the mustard with your messaging, and there's stuff we need to improve. And so it's like that loving honesty, whereas I'm holding space for how much this sucks, but I'm not about to just completely dissolve you of the discomfort and let you go on without making a change or empowering yourself to sit in it, so that you can, from an empowered place, sit with it, to know this is what needs to happen for me to grow. I need to feel discomfort. I need to look at things differently. I need to open my mind. I need to challenge the way I'm doing things. I need to do things differently, take new action. I need to be told where what I'm doing isn't working. I need to be given guidance again, to put it into a sort of example outside of ourselves, if a high level performance athlete, a sprinter, does a sprint, and their number one Olympic coach goes, Yeah, that was pretty good. Even though they can see, I can see a tiny 1% shift that would change. Maybe it would shift like a point three of a second off your end time. Of course, you're going to want to want to hear it, even though it takes more work. But a real good coach goes, Yeah, I know this is fucking hard, and we've got that you can do better. I believe you can do better. And so the key shift really here, the difference is that coaching means you're being compassionate but firm. You're acknowledging it. You're acknowledging emotions while also guiding them towards self leadership. Self leadership. Hear that difference. You are guiding them towards self leadership because you trust they can handle it, because you believe in their ability to handle hard emotions, because you believe in their ability to hold their standards higher. You believe that they can do better, whereas coddling is, Oh God, I don't know if you can handle this discomfort. Also, I can't handle it, so let's just Yep. All good, all good. Don't worry about it. And so, like I said, there is a key difference here, and I think this is a really cool thing for you to think about. If you're a coach, if you're a parent, if you're a leader, if you are a friend, because, like I said, really meaningful relationships, where people feel expanded by you, where people feel they can come to you for things. And especially in the coaching industry, if you are a coach professionally, people will stop paying you when they feel like they are just paying for an overpriced cheerleader. And I've had this, you know, thought before, where I'm like, I'm not about to drop 1000s of 1000s of dollars for someone to tell me, I'm amazing. That's what my mom's for. Like, genuinely, my mum will be like, that was amazing, honey, you're so great. I'll just ring her if I need to be gassed up. But I'm not spending 1000s of dollars to be told You're incredible, when actually I need you to tell me where I'm not. And so again, this is, there is so much nuance to this, which I will just add at the end. Of course, it depends on who you're coaching. Of course, it depends on your target audience. Of course, it depends on the kind of things people are coming to you for. If you are actually a coach who works on people's complete self worth, and they come to you with nothing and they're broken, and maybe they've just come out of dv, or they're really starting from absolute ground zero, then maybe they actually are paying you to be lovingly coddled. And I would argue that there's still going to be so much benefit in being lovingly coddled in a way that doesn't actually dissolve them of self responsibility, of self empowerment, and that is the big difference. Are you empowering your clients, or are you actually disempowering them? And is it because you can't actually hold the friction that might come if you were to be honest and loving, or is it because you can't handle discomfort yet yourself? And so it's the easier thing to do just to let those standards kind of drop for a bit. And so the real takeaway here, especially if you are a coach, or you want to be a coach, I would say, really find find opportunities, and look for ways where maybe you've still got some people pleasing tendencies, and see where that could be playing out with clients. Because not only is this dynamic going to create clients who eventually need to be expanded and start to look for another coach. But also, if this is playing out in your business, trust me when I say eventually it's going to feel you're going to feel so drained, so burnt out. You won't be able to hold high standards or boundaries, because boundaries will be leaky because of people pleasing, and eventually business starts to feel really heavy. And so if you're a coach, looking at where you might be really there's some work to do around people pleasing will not only make you a more expansive coach, but it will make business feel lighter. And so that's something to leave you with. But also I want to leave you with this final thought that. Best coaches don't create reliance. They create self trust within their clients. They hold such a powerful mirror. They believe so strongly in their clients, ability to handle hard things. They believe so strongly in their clients, abilities to learn new skills. They believe so strongly in their clients, abilities to have tough conversations, that they become a safe space and a container for that client to grow as a human and to become such a self empowered human, and that is where you're going to create really meaningful, really deeply respectful relationships, where the container just grows and grows and grows, and there is so much growth and transformation, as opposed to hand holding through avoidance, very powerful thing to leave you with. So I would love to know if this was helpful, and if you found these coaching sort of coaching advice, coaching tips, coaching topics, really helpful and supportive. Let me know, because I have so many ideas, so many things to talk about, especially within the coaching industry. I would love to know if you loved this episode. Reach out to me on the DMS, share it on your stories. Help me to grow this beast, and I will speak to you next week back in Australia. Konnichiwa, thank you for tuning in to the mind school podcast. It is a massive intention of mine to continue to grow this show, because the more the show goes, the better the guests get, and I know that is going to be so powerful for you listening. So if I could ask this massive favor, it would mean the world if you could please leave a review, hit the Follow button or leave a rating on Spotify, so that we can continue to grow this show and bring you the juiciest, most thought provoking and expansive conversations through incredible guests. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week. You.