0:07

Welcome to unfucked your brain.

0:09

The only podcast that teaches you

0:11

how to use psychology, feminism,

0:13

and coaching to rewire your

0:15

brain and get what you want in life.

0:18

And now here's your host, Harvard

0:20

Lost Full Rad, Feminist Rockstar,

0:23

and Mask your coach, par a low and

0:25

thigh.

0:27

I know my chickens. Today,

0:30

we are doing a kind

0:32

of a q and a. I'm gonna be answering some

0:35

questions that I've gotten on social media

0:37

lately. Some of them are

0:40

about coaching in general, the

0:42

kind of practice of coaching, questions

0:44

and coaching. Some of them are about coaching

0:46

businesses, some of them are about kind of

0:48

entrepreneurship in general. So

0:51

it's really something for everyone. Just kind of an

0:53

overall q and a. But particularly

0:55

with questions from coaches.

0:58

It's kind of the majority, but by no

1:00

means the totality. Okay.

1:02

First question that I got is

1:05

What is the question that you love

1:07

to ask during a coaching session with someone?

1:09

So there's obviously a million questions

1:11

that I love to ask depending.

1:14

Sometimes I just like look at you with

1:16

a raised eyebrow.

1:19

It's been called a coaching smart before.

1:21

But if I had to, like, pick one question for

1:23

the

1:23

rest of my life, like, if I was gonna be limited to

1:25

one coaching

1:25

question, I think it would be

1:28

why. Like,

1:29

the question why gets

1:31

you ninety percent of where

1:33

you need to go in coaching session.

1:35

It really is such a deep

1:37

all purpose question because it just always gets

1:39

you to the next layer. Like, somebody

1:41

can come in and say, you know, well, I wanna

1:44

talk about my boss, and then you

1:46

say why. And then they say, well, because

1:48

my boss is just I think that

1:50

they're disrespectful. And then you just

1:53

say, why. And then they, like, tell

1:55

you what circumstances are. Right? And then they,

1:57

like, say, and that's, you know, a problem. And then

1:59

you say, why?

1:59

So it'd be, like, really why

2:02

is, like, the all purpose workhorse

2:04

of coaching sessions. So

2:07

I do love that question. Everybody asked that question.

2:09

That is my favorite and then there's like so many that

2:11

are kind of similar or different versions,

2:13

but the other thing that I sometimes love to ask

2:15

like this is what I find the most helpful

2:18

to ask when you have tried like thirteen

2:20

different

2:20

routes to get to where you're going.

2:23

You

2:23

know, you've asked a bunch of different questions

2:26

or you've coached someone on something frequently.

2:28

Like, you've coached them 2345

2:31

times about it. Still coming

2:33

back, or they, like, know that their thoughts

2:35

are irrational about it. but they really don't

2:37

wanna let them go. Whatever. You're you're sort of

2:39

like, this isn't the first time you're coaching

2:41

them on it or they're really

2:44

stuck whatever it is. I like to just ask,

2:46

what do you think you are gaining or

2:48

benefiting? Right? How is this

2:50

story or this behavior or whatever it

2:52

is? How is it helping you? What are you

2:54

getting out of it? because so

2:56

often if we have been, like, coached a lot

2:58

on something or we have a lot of judgment

3:01

about a behavior, we only see

3:03

the negative of it. And that's really

3:05

blocking us from understanding what

3:07

it's doing. Why are we holding onto it?

3:09

Right? We're holding onto it because it is doing

3:11

something for us. It's

3:13

answering some need. It's making sense

3:15

of something for us. It's providing some kind

3:17

of psychological safety for us.

3:19

It is keeping our ego

3:21

feeling intact and coherent or something.

3:24

Like, it all depends on what the issue is.

3:26

But I find that can be a kind

3:28

of unexpected question that really

3:30

makes person think about something from

3:32

a really different perspective. And

3:34

sometimes with coaching, what you're

3:36

actually asking less

3:38

than if you are just able to get the person

3:41

to look at something from a different perspective.

3:44

So it's not always even the case that

3:46

what happens is I say, what

3:48

are you getting from this? How is it helping you?

3:50

And the person comes up with a one line answer

3:52

that unlocks the whole thing? That's not what

3:54

happens. But the mental

3:56

flexibility and shift and creativity

3:58

that is like required

3:59

for them to unhook

4:02

from the way they've been thinking about it and look

4:04

at it from a completely it direction of

4:06

how is it helping me? How is it serving me?

4:08

Why am I attached to this? They've been they've been like so

4:10

identified with. I don't like this

4:12

thought. I don't like this pattern. I wanna get rid of it.

4:15

and sort of it just like surprises their brain

4:17

basically. When you surprise your

4:19

brain, you come up with

4:21

a lot more insight and you start to see

4:23

and notice different things. you're not just

4:25

looking for the same thing over and over again.

4:28

So that is one of my favorites. And

4:30

then another kind of general kind

4:32

of coaching questions. And he said, how do you

4:34

balance managing your thoughts and actually taking

4:36

action? The islands

4:38

makes it sound like there's like an intentional

4:41

fifty fifty going on or something?

4:44

There is not. My friends, like, we're not.

4:46

Nobody is living Martha Stewart life other than

4:48

Martha Stewart probably, and probably

4:50

not even her. So I

4:52

think the question is really like, how

4:54

do I know when to match my mind?

4:56

Do I want to take action? And I

4:58

think the answer is always just like you look at your

5:00

results. Right? If

5:02

you're taking a bunch of action and you're not getting

5:04

the results you want, then something's

5:06

going on in your thoughts. Right? And it's impacting

5:09

how you feel, which is impacting how you show up

5:11

in the actions that you take. And that's why

5:13

you're not getting the results you want. Right? So, like, if

5:15

your thought is I suck

5:17

at selling coaching. You might be

5:19

taking a lot of action going out there

5:21

to like make offers and to

5:23

podcasts and talk to people and blah blah blah. But if

5:25

your thought is that you suck the whole time, it doesn't

5:27

usually produce the result you want because

5:29

the way you're doing it is

5:31

driven by that negative thought and feeling.

5:34

So if you're taking a bunch of action, you're not getting what

5:36

you want, that's when you wanna look at

5:38

your thoughts for sure. On the other

5:40

hand, I think part of what this

5:42

question is kind of gesturing at is that

5:44

it is possible to get to

5:46

caught up in self coaching and not take

5:48

any action. But I think that the

5:50

reason that that happens is that people

5:52

think, well, because my thoughts will

5:54

show up my results, I need to be in the perfect

5:57

place to take action. And that

5:59

is like a very perfectionist

5:59

thought process that is also not

6:02

helpful because thought work and

6:04

action and learning and changing

6:06

results are all iterative processes,

6:09

which means you have

6:11

to iterate you have to do it over and

6:13

over again, learn something each time.

6:15

Right? You can't just like coach yourself to a

6:17

perfect state of calm and positive

6:19

emotion and then take action. Because honestly,

6:21

the minute you start seeing action, some new shit's

6:23

gonna come up that you didn't expect. You're gonna have to

6:25

coach yourself again. So there isn't really a

6:27

point to waiting to that. You wanna, like, coach yourself

6:29

enough to take the action, take the

6:31

action, evaluate, see

6:33

what happened, did you take the action you wanted

6:35

or not? Did you get the result you wanted or

6:37

not? Cut yourself as needed.

6:40

Do it again. And you gotta keep

6:42

iterating forward. Right?

6:44

Do it, evaluate, coach yourself,

6:46

do it, evaluate, coach yourself, do it,

6:48

evaluate, coach yourself. whatever

6:50

the thing is. Like, whether you're trying to get yourself to

6:52

the gym three times a week or you're trying to

6:54

make a million dollars in a coaching business, like, it really

6:56

doesn't matter. It's the same thing. So

6:59

I wouldn't call it a balance because

7:01

that makes it sound like there is a

7:03

like correct ratio. I

7:05

just think of it as more of a dialectic like

7:09

you are continuously doing both

7:11

things and they are building on and feeding

7:13

off of

7:13

each other and you are

7:15

continually evaluating what's

7:17

happening and adjusting based

7:20

on that. Okay.

7:21

Got some coaching business

7:23

questions. So one

7:25

was how did you know your niche?

7:28

And then how did you know it's time to switch from one

7:30

on one coaching to a group? And

7:33

the answer to this is, and

7:35

this is gonna be useful. So those of you who aren't

7:37

coaches too because of how I'm gonna answer this.

7:39

There's no such thing as knowing your

7:41

niche. Your niche is not a thing that exists.

7:43

that you, like, stumble upon and know it.

7:45

That's like saying, like, how do you know if someone is

7:47

your soul mate? It's not a thing that exists

7:50

that you, like, stumble on and have to recognize

7:52

or not. It's just a decision

7:54

you make. I just decided that

7:56

my niche was lawyers. Right?

7:58

And this is really like this isn't an issue

8:00

of semantics. really important how we

8:02

think about and phrase these things. Right?

8:04

How did you know your

8:07

niche sort of implies that there's

8:09

some mystical or

8:11

receptive thing happening like

8:13

that I am discovering it or I have

8:15

to recognize it or I have some knowledge

8:17

has to come from within me. about

8:19

something that already exists or is already

8:21

true. As opposed to, I

8:23

had no niche because I didn't have a business and then

8:25

I decided what my niche was. Some

8:27

people say niche. Some people say niche. I

8:29

go back and forth. So I decided

8:31

it was lawyers. And

8:33

I took my coach, Brook

8:34

Castillo's advice, and I

8:37

I mean, I have many coaches. Bookes was my the

8:39

person who trained me in coach certification

8:41

at the time. That is, you know, still in my

8:43

mentors. But I just when I say my coach on this

8:45

podcast, I could be talking about twelve

8:47

different people that I work with or have worked

8:49

with on different aspects of my life. But

8:51

in this case, I'm talking about Brook, who, you

8:53

know, really taught, like, stick with

8:55

your niche for a year. And I did

8:57

that and I'm really glad that I did.

8:59

I learned a lot and it made me commit

9:01

to it and really, like, work at it

9:03

rather than changing my niche when it didn't

9:05

work immediately. So I decided that

9:07

based on the fact that I had been a lawyer I mean, for

9:09

lots of reasons, like, some that I

9:11

stand by, some that, like, are not how I would

9:13

decide it now. but

9:15

who cares? Like, that's where I was then. And

9:17

my thought process then was based on both,

9:20

like, my professional expertise,

9:22

my professional network, but also like

9:24

what I thought sounded kind of plausible and

9:26

made sense. So it was a variety of

9:28

reasons. And then after about

9:30

eighteen months, I had already made my

9:32

first hundred thousand in a

9:34

year coaching lawyers. And

9:36

I just started to see that I was being

9:39

feeling like drawn to add

9:41

this stuff. Like, this is a good thing

9:43

because I think this is a good example for how to know if

9:45

you are just trying to run away from your from

9:47

a niche because you have niche drama or

9:49

whether you really want to do something else. I

9:51

wasn't like, oh, I wanna stop coaching

9:53

lawyers. I don't like them. They're not buying.

9:55

They're not cooperating, whatever. I had like

9:57

no negative thoughts about the people who

9:59

are in my

9:59

niche. I just kept

10:02

wanting to add to it I was like, oh, when

10:04

I want to also do this body image retreat, and

10:06

then I wanna also coach on dating.

10:08

So it wasn't like a rejection of my current

10:10

niche. It was like, oh, but I wanna help

10:12

people with all these other things too. And

10:15

so in that point, I started the process of

10:17

saying like, okay. Well, is there a way that all these

10:19

things fit together? and that was how

10:21

I sort of created unfocus your

10:23

brain. And I did that work with a business

10:25

coach. I did a day long intensive

10:27

with Rachel Rogers in

10:29

two thousand and, I guess,

10:32

eight seventeen eighteen.

10:34

Anyway, I did a one day retreat where

10:36

we talked about, like,

10:38

everything I've been doing, my core niche, all the

10:40

other stuff I've been doing, and, like, talked

10:42

through kind of what brought those

10:44

things together. to pull together my

10:46

expertise, what to call it, all of that.

10:48

And that was how I figured it out. But

10:50

the point is, you don't just know you're

10:52

niche, you decide it. It's an action. The

10:54

decision is an action. And then somebody is,

10:56

how do you know it's time to switch to group?

10:58

I really just am by the book

11:00

with this. It's time to switch to

11:02

group. when you have a waitlist for one on

11:04

one coaching and you are now booking

11:06

people to start several months out.

11:08

That's when you switch to group.

11:10

Listen. I'm not a sort of mainstream

11:13

business coach. I mean, I offer some

11:15

business coaching to people who've gone through my advanced

11:16

certification. We really focus

11:19

on deprogramming kind of

11:21

the patriarchal thought patterns that are keeping you

11:23

from making money, but, like, I'm not somebody who

11:25

has a whole patented system

11:27

for start from scratch. and go

11:29

to million dollars with these steps of these

11:31

kinds of programs and

11:33

whatever. That that's not my expertise, but I

11:35

will say that when people ask me, this is

11:37

what I say, which is In my

11:39

experience and in my people's experience, it is harder

11:41

to sell a group than it is to sell one on one coaching.

11:43

You need more people coming through your consult

11:45

process to fill a group. So

11:47

don't start a group until you have a

11:49

waitlist for one to one and you are signing

11:51

people up. So when I started my first group, I

11:53

was at that point doing consultation

11:56

calls and taking people's deposits and

11:58

signing them up to start working

12:00

with me one to one, like, two to

12:01

three months ahead of time.

12:03

and my consults were booked out

12:06

like

12:06

two months or

12:07

so.

12:08

Okay. Biggest piece of advice for folks

12:10

in their first few years. So think this

12:12

applies to any business probably, but I feel like

12:14

it's more intense for coaches

12:16

for some reason.

12:17

Your business is

12:19

not supposed to

12:21

just work magically overnight. I

12:24

think that this is like a disservice

12:26

in a way that I don't know. There's

12:28

so many complicated factors with this, but

12:30

one of the things I see so much in my

12:32

students is that because people become coaches

12:34

without really often much

12:36

business experience, nobody's gone to get

12:38

an MBA. Most people haven't, like,

12:40

studied business in college. people

12:43

are, you know, drawn to

12:45

helping people, and they're drawn to coaching, and they

12:47

wanna be entrepreneurs. And then

12:49

they don't really have an understanding

12:52

of what entrepreneurship is

12:54

like. Being an entrepreneur

12:56

is inherently a

12:59

roller coaster experience,

13:01

like and you have to learn

13:03

the whole thing while you're doing

13:05

it. It just the first few

13:07

years especially are just can

13:09

be really tough. And I that's

13:11

not a reason not to do it. Like, lots

13:14

of shit is

13:14

really hard going. Harvard

13:15

Law School was hard. I'm glad

13:17

I did it. Clirking

13:18

was hard. I'm glad I did it. Being a reprocerytes

13:21

litigator was hard. I'm glad I did it.

13:23

Doing the work on my body image to love my

13:25

body was hard. days, it's still hard. I'm

13:27

glad I do it. Like something being hard is not

13:29

a reason to not do it. But

13:31

so much of the suffering I see from

13:33

coaches especially, but lots of kind of

13:35

first early entrepreneurs who don't

13:37

have any background in business and

13:39

haven't studied it in any way and don't really know what's

13:41

gonna happen is that they think

13:43

that it's supposed to be this, like,

13:45

smooth ride where

13:48

everything goes easily

13:49

and you

13:51

just business just starts out

13:53

self supporting from the ground up. That's

13:56

just not realistic. Like,

13:58

most people who start a

13:59

business either are

14:02

working a day job to pay their expenses while they get

14:04

the business up and running or are

14:06

using capital their own if they have

14:08

money or are they borrowing from other people,

14:10

whether that's a bank or family and

14:12

friends or getting business

14:14

partners or getting investment from people they

14:16

know whatever it is. Like, that's

14:18

normal. It's like a normal

14:20

thing to build a business requires

14:23

time and money and effort.

14:25

But for some reason, people get into it and

14:27

they somehow think that it's not going to acquire

14:29

those things or that it is all going

14:31

to happen overnight. So

14:33

my biggest advice for people in the first few

14:35

years is just like keep going.

14:37

Like, just keep going.

14:39

My student Corey just

14:42

posted

14:42

something about how three years ago

14:44

she was

14:45

out of a treat with me in New Orleans.

14:47

and she had made, like, her

14:50

goal was to make a hundred thousand in a

14:52

year. Actually, she gave me two retreats and they the

14:54

first retreat her goal had been to make a

14:56

hundred and she made twelve thousand or

14:58

fourteen thousand. And I coached her

15:00

quite a lot. And

15:00

then the

15:02

next year I

15:03

think was the year she made a hundred for the first time. But

15:05

anyway, she was so she was just like reminiscing

15:08

about how. At this point in the

15:09

year, maybe three years ago or something, she had made

15:11

thirty five thousand. and that

15:13

this year now she had

15:15

made two hundred thousand in the first six months

15:17

of this year. And

15:18

I just like I remember watching

15:20

her go through like, what it

15:22

was like in the beginning, like, the year that she

15:24

made fourteen when she wanted to make a

15:26

hundred. And then, you

15:27

know, the year where she

15:29

got partway through the year, and she was still only

15:32

at thirty five, and she'd wanted to be at

15:34

a hundred or be at fifty, whatever it was.

15:36

Like, I'm just watching her go through

15:38

this process. obviously don't have all the math

15:40

exactly. I don't remember all the math

15:42

exactly. But I remember coaching

15:44

her about the fourteen thousand, which told

15:46

me at the time was twelve thousand because our brains ignore

15:48

money when we have thoughts like this. But

15:50

I remember coaching her about the twelve, and I

15:52

remember when she made her first hundred k, now

15:54

she's made two hundred and worked two thirds the way through

15:56

the year. Like, she's stuck with it. And

15:58

in the scheme of time,

16:01

it has not been that long.

16:03

You know,

16:03

she's been doing this for like

16:04

three or four years,

16:06

but we get so fixated on

16:09

like the first year or the first two years, and

16:11

everybody's path is different. Some of sometimes it

16:13

takes five years or ten years, whatever it

16:15

takes. So my

16:17

biggest advice is, like, stick with it,

16:19

but be all in for it. Don't become

16:21

an entrepreneur if what you want

16:23

is a

16:24

really chill, non challenging

16:27

risk free experience. That's

16:29

not on the menu. That's not what

16:31

we're doing here.

16:32

So you gotta be up for it. You gotta be

16:34

in for it. You gotta be ready to do that

16:36

work. If you

16:38

have been listening to this podcast

16:40

for a while, you would not be

16:42

surprised

16:42

to hear that I call myself

16:44

a feminist coach, and that kind of

16:46

coaching that I teach and

16:47

train coaches in is feminist coaching.

16:50

But

16:50

feminist coaching can mean a lot of different

16:53

things. And what you may not

16:55

know is that I actually have

16:57

a signature framework that

16:59

builds on the concept of

17:01

feminist coaching and

17:03

teaches a

17:04

principal for actually each letter

17:06

in feminist coaching. To give

17:08

you the kind of 101

17:10

of it, founder is coaching the way that

17:12

I teach and train it is

17:15

facilitative and empowering

17:17

mutual intersectional, non

17:21

hierarchical, inclusive, safe,

17:23

and transparent. Those are

17:25

the characteristics that I believe coaching has

17:28

to have to

17:29

be truly feminist coaching.

17:31

And because

17:31

I think this is so important, I'm

17:34

going to be teaching it for the

17:36

first time outside of my advanced certification and

17:38

feminist coaching on a

17:40

totally free training that you

17:42

can sign up for. So if

17:44

you are a coach This

17:46

is a no brainer.

17:47

It is a must know,

17:49

need to know framework.

17:51

It will help you

17:53

understand how to create more transformation with

17:55

your clients,

17:56

how to create a coaching experience

17:58

that's actually in line with your values.

18:01

instead of replicating different

18:04

kinds of hierarchy and oppression in

18:06

your coaching experience and

18:08

as a coach in your coaching

18:10

session. we're not aware of

18:12

the kind of active principles we

18:14

need

18:14

to have. We will unconsciously

18:16

revert to patterns

18:18

and programming that we haven't really

18:20

looked at or considered. So this is

18:22

a totally

18:23

free training and I'm gonna teach you what

18:25

each

18:25

of these words means

18:28

in the context of coaching, which is different from

18:30

the dictionary definition sometimes,

18:32

and how to bring

18:33

these values and principles

18:35

to your coaching, to

18:37

make it more feminist, to make sure that your

18:39

coaching is facilitative and

18:42

empowering mutual, intersectional,

18:44

non hierarchical, inclusive,

18:47

safe, and transparent. So we

18:48

are gonna be doing that on this

18:51

free training you can get all the

18:53

information, find out when it is,

18:55

sign up to attend live, or you'll get

18:57

the replay. If you can't attend

18:59

live, Just text your email to plus

19:01

13479971784

19:06

Again, that's plus 13479971784

19:11

and the code word

19:13

when you get the text prompting you for

19:15

the code word. is feminist coaching. Two words.

19:18

Feminist coaching or go

19:20

to unfuck your brain dot com forward

19:22

slash feminist coaching where it's all

19:24

one word. unfucku brand dot com

19:26

forward slash feminist coaching,

19:27

all one word. And if you have

19:29

been waiting for the advanced certification,

19:32

in feminist coaching to

19:33

open again, to do our reg we

19:35

only open once a year for

19:37

application. At the end of this

19:39

training, I

19:39

will be giving details on when and how

19:41

that is happening. So if you want to

19:43

be the first to know and get in first

19:45

since we do rolling applications and

19:48

rolling admissions, this is the

19:50

place to find out first. I'll

19:54

see

19:56

you there.