Struggling To Make “Real Money” As An Online Coach? » Why It’s NOT Your Money Mindset Or Your Price

By Aligning With Your Online Business, Articles No Comments

The little-known (& never talked about) reasons why most coaches never feel secure about what they charge, how they coach or whether their clients are really happy.

 

Even though most of the business guru’s would have you believe that the reason you struggle to charge what you’re “worth” is because you need to work on improving your money-mindset in order to start making “real money” as a coach? That’s actually just a very small part of a much bigger story. The thing is, there’s a lot of opinions circling the online business coaching airwaves these days impressing upon you a very black and white picture of how you should be setting your programs up to be successful. But in my experience? When someone speaks in absolutes, rarely is that actually the best way to go about things – at least it never has been for me. So then, what I hope to offer you in this article is a refreshing new way to look at the way you’re pricing your programs, how you view your own value, and the impact these seemingly small things have on the work we’re actually capable of with our clients.

Not Sure What To Charge? Here’s Why Setting (& Saying) Our Price Feels So Hard

Simply put? We fully buy into the belief that there is a right and a wrong way to charge for our services. And if we take it a layer deeper, this means that we have been conditioned from key learning moments (and people) throughout our coaching journey to believe that if we don’t follow a specific set of unwritten rules, then we are most likely going to fail. And the worst part about it is that we can’t stop it! This process works entirely unconsciously – we automatically take in information and adopt it into our own belief system as our own if our mind decides it “makes sense” for us.

To that point, one of the most limiting belief patterns many of us fall victim to is our habit of calculating how much time or energy we are spending compared to how much money we are making. This is a well adopted social normal that fits many different industries. But in our unique coaching space? This model is outdated and extremely toxic for us mentally. To illustrate this for you, tell me >> have you ever broken down how much you charge per month into a dollar per hour amount? For example:

If you charge $250 a month…and you talk to your client for 30 minutes every week on the phone…plus about 30 minutes of additional random support…and if it takes you about 30 minutes each week to adjust their plan…then that works out to 6 hours total work per month per client which = $41/hour

Sure you have. We all have. But the reason why this is so toxic for you mentally? Is because it pushes you into a state of always feeling like you need to “do more” to justify that $41 per hour. It causes you to self-criticize whether or not the service you provide each week is worth more or less than $41…and it causes you to pressure yourself to do more (unnecessary) things to make yourself feel good about the money you’re charging.

To illustrate this, let’s take the example of a client missing a coaching call  with you. If a large chunk of the value you associate with charging $41/hour comes from running that coaching session – you are more likely to let your boundaries drop to reschedule, or to overcompensate with that client until you internally feel like the scales are tipped back into balance. When the truth is? The fact that you felt misaligned with how much you were charging because of that missed call is simply your perception of what makes up your worth (hint: it’s actually not the 3o minute coaching call).

There is no rulebook out there to tell you how much a coaching call is worth!

So then, in the end we usually end up chasing an illusion of validation by constantly trying to match our own perceived value to our price. Which ultimately leads us into a state of burnout, resentment, overthinking, self-doubt and guilt. Because lets face it – rarely to do things ever go “by the book” so to speak — there will always be some clients getting more time or attention from you than others. So if we ever want to feel good about what we charge…and we want to trust that we are actually enough without always needing to “do more” to prove that we are…we need a perspective shift – fast!

“Value” & “Cost” Are Not The Same Thing

Let me ask you a question: how much is this season’s newest Louis Vuitton bag worth to you?

There are thousands of people in the world who wear Louis Vuitton as a symbol of status…they invest in this brand because they feel it represents a part of their identity…and so naturally they would immediately attach a higher value to owning that particular item. Compare that to someone who has never heard of Louis Vuitton before…or even someone who struggles to put food on the table for their family…the value of owning that bag would be almost non-existent.

This is to illustrate the fact that the value someone places on something has nothing to do with how much it costs. Attaching value to an object, an experience, or a service is an entirely subjective process that is rooted in our beliefs, values, rules, and the meanings we have been conditioned to attach to them. Knowing this then, it might make more sense why some people you talk to will throw you their credit card…while others will scoff at how expensive it is to work with you. It’s not YOU or your PRICE that they are rejecting…its simply their interpretation of whether their perception of whether the value you’re offering is more or less than the price you are charging.

For example, if we circle back to the example above…if you told a Louis Vuitton lover that this brand new bag was only $100 – they would run to the cashier credit card in hand. But if you told a single mom who is working 3 jobs just to pay her bills and put food on the table that this new bag was only $100…she would scoff at the obscene idea of wasting $100 on a BAG.

So what does this mean for you? 

First, you must stop questioning yourself, your program and your prices based on how some people perceive your value

If you’re getting more “no’s” than you are “yes’s”, there are 3 possible things happening:

(a) the person you’re talking to isn’t aligned with the value you provide

(b) you’re not clear yourself on the value you truly provide

(c) you’re not talking about the value you truly provide

Second, you need to get clear for yourself where your value truly lies…and attach a price to align with that

This👆👆 is often the hardest part for coaches because it requires radical trust in ourselves without turning to others to “figure it out”. Since value is a fully subjective experience, it’s actually impossible to look to others for the answer – we must take the time to turn inwards, strip away our conditioning and ask ourselves the hardest question of all: why me? 😳

“Why Me?” – And Other Hard Questions We Can’t Keep Avoiding

Learning, accepting and fully embracing what makes YOU more valuable than every other coach in the world is not an easy feat. In fact? The reason hardly anyone has discovered this for themselves comes down to one very simple truth >> its massively uncomfortable to look for it. In order to find why you are valuable, you naturally also need to admit why you aren’t. You’ll need to release your expectations of what you think a coach should be…and redefine for yourself the kind of coach you really are.

Sure, just reading this makes it sound easy enough – but I must warn you. This process takes a raw willingness to step out of your cozy little illusion and wake up to the truth that even the people we have been parroting…the people we have been looking to as our models to tell us why we “must” do things one way or another…have also been conditioned. They are likely also not grounded in their own unique value because they, too, looked to someone to learn who they needed to be in order to be successful, accepted, and to feel enough.

This chain ends with you. Its time to stop looking to others and begin turning inwards first to establish what it is that sets you apart.

Here’s some suggestions of where you can start your exploration:

  1. How do I currently justify my price to myself?  What must I do or accomplish in order to feel good about what I charge?
  2. When do I feel fully recognized by my clients or my peers? Who do I feel I need to be in order for this to happen?
  3. What comes naturally to me/what do I do with my clients that I don’t have to prepare for?
  4. What are 3-5 unique things that you are experienced at or have had the experience of that might be valuable to someone else, or someone else can learn from or feel inspired by?
  5. What are 3-5 unique things that you have learned and/or mastered?
  6. What are 3-5 unique things that you are extremely knowledgeable with that most others aren’t?
  7. What are 3-5 talents (or the result of your talents) that can be used inside of your business and what you do for others (these are things that come naturally to you, not things you have spent time to learn and master)
  8. What are 3-5 unique things that are unique about your personality?
  9. What are 3-5 strengths that you feel are unique to you?
  10. What are 3-5 weaknesses that you feel are unique to you?
  11. What are 3-5 qualities, skills or attributes you feel you need to develop or attain that would otherwise hold you back from success?
  12. When I feel like I am not doing enough for my clients, who/what is the benchmark am I comparing myself to and why?
  13. When I question how much I charge am I looking externally at the things I am doing, or am I looking internally at the things that I embody?
  14. What do I need to let go of in order to value myself first – and then translate that value into the work I do with my clients?
  15. What needs to shift for me to fully believe that I am enough and that my value is not found in the things I do, but rather who I am?

It’s important to realize that this journey inwards is never “done”…we cannot simply write out what “makes us valuable” and expect that to feel true forever. The real truth of it is that as humans we are ever-evolving. For example: you aren’t the same person in this moment as you were when you first started reading this article. As you expand, shift and adjust to the changing world around you, so does your value. As you learn and grow…what makes you valuable grows too. No two people will ever live the exact same life, which is such a truly beautiful concept when you take the time to look at it. That said, adopting a life of flexibility will be one of the greatest gifts to give yourself. Practice getting into the habit of mentally and emotionally “checking in” with yourself regularly and taking inventory of outdated beliefs/habits/rules/reactions…and replacing them with new, more empowering alternatives will work wonders to prevent stagnation and comparison. In other words ⇣⇣⇣

Where are you getting stuck doing things or thinking certain ways because that’s what you see others doing…and what feels true to YOU???

Now that you better understand your value in terms of pricing and programming…there is one final piece to this puzzle we need to unpack. Have you ever noticed yourself react in session with a client if you felt like they weren’t listening to you or taking your advice? Have you ever fallen into teacher-fixer-expert-mode in response to a struggling client? If you sheepishly answered “yes”, there’s nothing to feel ashamed by – this is human nature at its finest! But this is also causing us to devalue ourselves with our clients (and ourselves). Let’s look a bit deeper…

The 4 Ways We Sabotage Our Own Value (& How To Stop)

The last piece to this value pie boils down to what we unknowingly do when we detect our value being challenged or put into question. There are 4 key coaching moments where we are vulnerable to feeling de-valued – in no particular order, these are:

  • Anytime a client is succeeding and we feel like they don’t really need us/we aren’t sure what to do to be valuable
  • A client is struggling and isn’t listening to us or following the advice we give
  • A prospective client says we are too expensive and doesn’t invest even though they “clearly need us”
  • A client leaves us before they reach their goals or doesn’t resign with us even though they’re not where they want to be yet

To fully grasp where we’re going wrong in each of these scenarios (and how to stop reacting in the ways that we are) its key to understand that you are hard wired to protect your own unique model of the world – and that when this feels threatened we immediately “armor up” to maintain the internal representation of right and wrong. The ways we do this are varied and plentiful, but for the purposes of understanding our “armoring up” tendencies from a coaching standpoint, here are the most common ways we tend to do this:

(a) we defend our thoughts, our advice, our plans, our perspectives and the results we are seeing (even if this feels illogical)

(b) we fall into teacher-fixer-expert-mode because this is where we feel the most in control and where a lot of our value originally came from

(c) we get frustrated with our client (or with ourselves)

(d) we justify the outcomes from the decisions we made, even if those outcomes are not optimal or empowering – we will find evidence to support why our decision was correct

(e) we compare ourselves to others and bury ourselves in to-do lists to create an illusion of value

So then, understanding this, lets look at each of the above coaching moments one at a time and apply this concept directly to them:

#1: Anytime a client is succeeding and we feel like they don’t really need us

It’s difficult to feel useless in a coaching dynamic when the client is doing great without our constant intervention. And even though this IS the ultimate end goal with every client we work with, that fact doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable to navigate when they are still a paying client. Typically we will respond to this by over-teaching, over-meddling, and searching for tiny things to pull apart as a way to feel like we are “being valuable to our client”…but all this really does is shift the client into a place of “never good enough”, self-doubt and mistrust in themselves.

A better way to navigate these scenarios is to:

  • become aware of your emotional reaction, and recognize where you habitually tend to look for areas to “insert yourself” and fix the wheel that isn’t broken
  • ask yourself “what is it about the way they are currently behaving that feels permanent versus temporary”
  • ask your client to explore with you what actions they are taking that feel easy, and which ones require a good deal of mental effort
  • explore possible scenarios where old patterns may re-emerge to prepare them to navigate those if and when they come up
  • explore their reaction to success on the scale – especially if the goal is a neutral reaction to body weight – now would be a great time to dive deeper into their relationship with the scale and some internal work to shift their perspective here

Our value in these scenarios comes from being able to anticipate 10 steps down the road, and initiate meaningful conversation with our client while they are feeling mentally, physically and emotionally resilient about how to better prepare for the common pitfalls that are sure to present themselves eventually.

#2: A client is struggling and isn’t listening to us or following the advice we give them

We’ve all had that one client who fights you on everything, never takes action on what you discussed, and comes to your coaching sessions every week with the same handful of excuses and sob-story about why they couldn’t “do all the things”, right? When this happens its very natural to shift into a place of defensiveness…habitually falling into teacher-fixer-expert-mode to give them a reason to listen to you. When in reality? This reaction is simply your internal navigation steering you down the road that feels safe to travel because there is no risk or threat of being wrong. And in doing so? Our client feels as though we don’t truly hear or understand them…like we don’t see their struggle…and like it is entirely unsafe in the future to be as vulnerable with us when they struggle again.

So even though on the surface it feels like you’re helping in the best way you know how…you’re really corroding the relationship, their trust in you and your ability to reach them on the level you need to in order to fully grasp why there were struggling in the first place. As you well know, a lack of education is not the reason why your client isn’t achieving their goals…its implementation of what they’re learning that’s the real problem. And the only way to better help them implement the things you know they need to? Is to better understand why they aren’t already.

You will find a detailed article on exactly how to do this right over here ⇣⇣⇣

3 Steps To Easily Overcome Why Your Client Can’t Stick To Their Diet

#3: A prospective client says we are too expensive

As you have already been made aware, when someone puts our price into question we often perceive that to mean they are putting our value into question. This can often push us into a reactionary state where we contemplate dropping our prices, we offer discounts, or we find ways to make our programs “appear” less expensive so we can avoid this scenario all-together. But you must remember – the price they are rejecting is simply not aligned with the value they perceive. This might mean:

  • that you aren’t the best fit for them
  • that their life circumstances has caused them to value their own health and wellbeing at less than you do
  • that the amount of money you charge is simply more than they have available to spend on such a service
  • that you were not sharing with them why you are truly valuable (and were simply parroting others)
  • that you do not yet understand for yourself what makes you valuable

But what none of these mean? Is that your price is too expensive (if that price feels aligned to you). The only time you should adjust your price is if you feel, without outside influence, that you are either charging too much or too little. Take any cerebral math calculations out of it – how much do you feel you are worth? Whether you feel that’s $50, $500 or $5000 – you’re right. But remember, you’re also going to expand this with time. The reflection practice I shared with you earlier is a great time to reassess whether your price still aligns with the perception of your value, or whether it might be time for an upgrade.

#4: A client leaves us before they reach their goals or doesn’t re-sign with us

This is particularly hurtful because ultimately it reflects that our client experienced a loss of trust and belief in us as their coach. Another way to look at this is through the lens of admitting our clients expectations were not met. Ultimately one of the biggest errors coaches make that sabotage our ability to hold onto our clients for the long-term journey is a lack of expectation-setting or pre-framing for what this journey is going to look like for them. Let’s face it, its not particularly sexy to tell your client that they’re going to have hard days…that progress might be slower than they want…and that there’s going to be moments where they want to quit all-together. But this is actually exactly how to cultivate a deep sense of value in the service you provide so that you can easily maintain your client roster even if results are less than earth-shattering.

In other words? Your value isn’t in how fast you generate results…but rather how you make your client feel throughout the process. Do they feel safe to struggle? Do they feel seen, heard and understood? And do they trust you to help guide them through their barriers so that together you can cultivate deep and meaningful change (compared to the fleeting, superficial successes they have experienced in the past)? If so, you’ll never feel your value be put under the microscope by a client leaving prematurely simply because they have invested in YOU…not your program.

For a complete guide to client retention, check this article out ⇣⇣⇣

3 Powerful Steps To Keeping Your Clients Happy & Committed Long-Term

 

LASTLY…

For a bit more hands on support to navigate the most turbulent coaching conversations you come up against, I created the Coaching Conversation Revelation for you to download for FREE ⇣⇣⇣

With this, you’ll quickly be able to dig into the top 15 “make or break” client conversations without ever worrying about saying the wrong thing or suggesting the wrong strategy.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY


And lastly, when you feel ready, I’d love to help you with this more closely inside of TriggerMapping – my certification and mentorship program where I work hands-on with a group of nutrition coaches to show them how to graduate from “just another nutritionist”…and become known as the go-to expert for creating life-altering transformation at the deepest level in every client they work with…

…plus show them how this level of mastery organically allows you to…

🤑charge the kind of money the pro’s do (we’re talking 1K/month here, love)…

📣keep your clients for as long as you want so you can escape the revolving door of clients coming in and going out

🙋🏼‍♀️have a waitlist of people who will pay you in advance just to save their spot in line

🌟only work w/ the clients who are ready for the deep work you’ve always wanted dig into without battling resistance or pushback

💫align your coaching program with how you want to serve your clients and live your life

💖walk away from every single coaching session with a deep knowing that you left your client a different person because of what you just did with them

I mean, just think about it like this for a second.

You know that old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink?”

Well what if…you really could make it drink?

That’s exactly what I’m going to be teaching you to do with your clients.

So if you feel ready to be so much more than what you were traditionally conditioned to think was possible for you?

👉🏼Just fill out this short 2 minute application form to let me know where you’re currently at. 

I’ll reach out to you and ask you a few questions to see if I can help…If I can, I’ll shoot all the details over to you.

Thanks for reading! And be talking soon.

xx Laura

3 Powerful Steps To Keeping Your Nutrition Clients Happy & Committed Long-Term

By Articles, Client Connection & Communication No Comments

Getting more clients will never make you successful unless you master this first.

Did you know that getting more clients is really only 49%(!!) of what you should be focusing on in order to build your dream client roster? The other 51% (and more important part) is really the art of retaining your clients for as long as you need to in order to get them the best result possible (and keeping them happy and fully committed during that time).

Cause even though having 10 sales calls booked every week with a consistently full roster sure sounds like the dream? What’s way better is filling your roster once, and keeping it full for 6-12 months while you build a nice little waitlist on the side for those who are eager to work with you when a coveted spot does open up again. Simply put? Growing in this way would actually allow you to gain the luxuries of:

  • More predictability and certainty in your monthly revenue (versus a schedule constantly in flux and dependent upon how many calls you can squeeze into your week)
  • Less stress about trying to re-sign clients who were never really committed to you or the process
  • Never worrying about whether your client is progressing week after week because you know they are bought into the long-term process with you and can see the bigger picture beyond a single weigh in or data point
  • Faster, dreamy sales calls because the people waiting to work with you are already sold before you talk
  • And so much more…

So I’m not sure what you value more – the illusion of success created by the never ending chase for “more” OR REAL success from becoming known as the best at what you do? But if you crave the latter, in this article I’m going to teach you my 3 step process to escaping the hustle for “more” and settling into a process inside of how you hold people through their journey with you that guarantee’s long-term retention and radical change in everyone you work with.

STEP #1 | Help Them Understand The Journey You’re Going To Be Taking Them On

How long you can keep you clients for initially depends on a very specific conversation you’ll have with them before they ever become a client. That’s right, although we’ve been taught that how much we charge them, how much we do for them, and how fast we can get them a result are the core factors influencing someone’s decision to work with us for 3 months versus 12? That’s actually no longer the case (if it ever really was?)

Truth be told, of there are coaches out there who don’t need to work with their clients for longer than 2-3 months – they stick to the “basics” and are really only looking for an end physical result. And if this is you? This article probably isn’t going to help you much, and that’s ok! There are millions of people out there looking for a “quick fix” program to get them going on their journey. But! If you want to become known for something…if you want to truly transform the lives of the people you’re working with…you simply cannot do that in 2-3 months. You need time to delve deeper into the inner workings of their minds, to locate the subconscious patterns making them do the things they wish they could stop, and to link all of that back to their food choices and how that’s impacting other areas of their life.

Expectations Are Everything!

Your first step with every client who starts with you moving forward is to help them understand what this journey is going to look like with you (and why this will be more meaningful to achieve the life they are truly chasing).

The thing is, at this point you must understand that very likely their only experience with coaching previously? Looked a lot more like the “quick fix” programs, and a lot less like what you have planned to do with them. In other words:

  • They are expecting you to give them the same stuff that their last program gave them (meal plans, daily monotonous check-ins, etc)
  • They are expecting to see fast weight loss
  • They are expecting to feel hungry and restricted
  • They are NOT expecting you to ask them about their triggers, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, etc. around food
  • They are NOT expecting to have to talk about their resistance to change, their relationships in their life, or where they are limiting themselves
  • The are absolutely NOT prepared to be vulnerable with you

So. If we don’t spend some time in our initial conversation rewriting some of their preconceptions about what this coaching relationship is going to feel like and how this journey is going to unfold? Unfortunately at about 2-3 months they are going to quit on you simply because where they will be at in their journey will not meet their previously held expectations – EVEN IF you had managed to help them achieve greater shifts in their mindset and their relationship to food AND if those shifts have generated positive (and healthy) losses for them – but why?

Prepping For The Retention Pre-Frame Conversation

Because, we behave in a predetermined way based on who we think we are and what we believe we need in order to uphold that sense of self. Which means, if we failed to attach meaning to the mindset shifts we created, the improved relationship with food they witnessed, or any other much deeper emotional or psychological shifts that had a positive impact on their life? Simply put – they won’t care. At least, not unless those things also gave them the 20 pound loss they were aiming for, the complete annihilation of their sugar cravings, and finally squeezing into their favorite pair of skinny jeans from the 80’s.

So then its up to us to help them look at (and question) their current beliefs (and expectations) of themselves, and replace them with new, more empowering expectations of the journey with you. Ultimately, people all operate the same way. They think they want to squeeze into the skinny jeans, but what they really want is the life they think they will have because that’s possible again. So in your initial conversation, this is your first goal.

  • What do they say they want to accomplish {ie: to fit into their fave skinny jeans again, to never crave sugar again, etc.}
  • What beliefs do they already have about how they think they need to live or what they think they need to do in order to get that
  • Why is that meaningful for them? What will their life look like and feel like, what will they be able to do that they feel they can’t right now, what would that change for them, etc?
  • Has this worked in the past for them, why or why not?
  • Is this ^^ actually true? (aka: if they say it “worked” in the past…did it really? Because if it did, they wouldn’t be talking to you now)
  • Hypothetically, do they believe the life they are chasing is possible even if they don’t {fit into their skinny jeans}? Why or why not?
  • Why do they believe all of the things they say they believe? (ie: why do you believe that you can’t eat carbs if you want to lose weight?)

And finally…

  • Would it be okay with you if I shared with you what I’m seeing? >> and this is your opportunity to explore with them why a longer term journey will serve them better…

…to highlight all of the internal work that needs to happen in order to support them in the life that they want to be living…

…to explore with them new beliefs about themselves and what is truly possible for them…

…and to get them excited about approaching their journey from an entirely new place.

Share What’s Going To Happen (& Get Their Buy-In 💯)

It sounds simple in theory…and you’re probably thinking “I do that already”, BUT >> There is a big difference between telling them that you are different, your program is different and their experience will be different than last time

…and getting them to full-body-buy-in to all of that as well. Besides, just because they say they want to pave their path to success with those big internal shifts you’re selling them on? Doesn’t mean that they wont still want to rush the process, lose weight faster and feel down about their progress even if they’re doing everything “right”.

The thing is, old conditioning dies hard. It takes repetition, and reminding and patience and space holding to help our clients look into the dark crevice’s where their patterns are lurking. So the best way to get ahead of those difficult conversations? Is to talk about them right here and now, before they ever become a client, before you’re ever faced with that scenario in session. It’s really as easy as telling them something like the following…

[SAVE THIS TO USE LATER👇👇👇]

Something I’d like to quickly chat about, now that I know we’re on the same page and that you’re fully committed to the uncomfortable work we’re going to be doing together, is what’s going to happen at different stages of this journey.

In the past, you were used to seeing fast progress in the programs you started and stopped…you’re used to feeling restricted, to following a plan that wasn’t designed for you. So as we venture down a new path that doesn’t look or feel like the ones you’re familiar with, you’re going to experience moments where you feel like you’re not progressing fast enough…where you wanted to see a bigger drop on the scale…where the off-scale progress you’re making doesn’t feel like it matters or like you’re not really changing all that much.

When in reality? A lot will be happening beneath the surface, and in those moments its really going to test your trust in yourself…your trust in me…and your ability to be vulnerable and transparent with me about what is coming up and how you’re feeling so that we can explore it together instead of those unspoken thoughts and feeling building into a sabotaging moment or resentment for the hard work you’re doing. Is that something you think you can do?

STEP #2 | Don’t Shrink Over Time, Hold Your Ground

There are a handful of reasons why coaches struggle to do this, even when they know what you do now:

  • They’re afraid of scaring their prospect away and losing the sale
  • They’re afraid of making them uneasy or creating an uncomfortable situation
  • They’re afraid that the client won’t see the value in what they are doing for them if they don’t get them fast result
  • They’re afraid of letting the client down or failing them
  • They just don’t know what to say when a client starts to get frustrated or feels like they aren’t progressing as fast as they should be

If any of these scenarios are sounding a little familiar 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️, I’d like to offer a perspective shift that might change things for you in this, and many other “tricky to navigate” client scenarios in the future >> your fear is based on an assumption about what you think will happen because of YOUR conditioning. That’s right, just like your clients have been conditioned to believe certain things about how their journey should look – so too have you. Which means, before entering into these conversations I would suggest you take some time to reflect inwards first.

USE THESE QUESTIONS AS YOUR GUIDE 👇👇

Why do I feel I need to rush their result even if I know its not what’s best for them?

Why do I try to control the outcome…what am I afraid will happen if I don’t live up to what I promised them?

What is it that I feel responsible for in my client relationships? Where did I learn those things were my responsibility?

What is the standard I hold myself to? Is this high vibe or low vibe? What would be a higher vibe standard to embrace as a coach?

What beliefs and rules do I need to let go of in order to coach my clients in this way?

Ultimately, you must be willing to look at your own conditioned reactions to their resistance. Let’s face it, it doesn’t feel awesome to know that our client isn’t fully bought into the plan we meticulously crafted for them. However, understand that their resistance really isn’t to you even though that’s where they’re directing it. Their resistance is really about releasing control, leaving the safety of what they’ve always known, stripping away an older version of themselves, and opening themselves up to discovering a new version. Don’t make it about you by assuming you need to defend yourself. Simply, and gently, welcome in this resistance, open up a dialogue about it and see if you can’t wade through those murky waters together as a team.

Have This Conversation Weekly

As you move through the coaching journey with your client, it will be normal for your client to periodically fall back into past patterns of wanting faster results, even though they truly do want the long term changes originally discussed. This isn’t happening because they are growing impatient with you, with your plan, or even with the results that they are seeing. This is happening because of the way they have been conditioned to expect change to take place. There are 3 ways I have found to quickly correct our clients mindset in these instances and get them back on our team:

1. Re-Attach Meaning Often

Make it a habit to consistently be attaching and reaffirming (a) why their plan looks the way it does, (b) how this is going to bring them where they want to be, (c) what they can expect to experience, and finally – but most importantly (d) ask them to reflect back to you from their perspective how taking the  advice or action steps you provided is meaningful to them. If any of these are unclear, the client will be more likely to fall back into past patterns as a default because even though rushing progress isn’t serving their long term life-goals…it feels comfortable, within their control and safe.

2. Call Out Resistance As It Happens

Start paying attention to your clients resistance “tells”. In other words – how do you know your client isn’t fully bought into what you’re telling them? Resistance often triggers defensive thoughts, angry dialogue, and “all or nothing” behavior patterns in nutrition clients. So then, during moments of resistance our default is to resort back to past patterns, as mentioned above, which means that if we don’t pull their resistance to the surface and address it as it happens, the chances of our clients feeling frustrated with their progress, with our plan and with us increases exponentially. Some common ways to tell if your client is apprehensive about your plan to take things slow and work on healing them from the inside-out are as follows:

  • timid or quiet energy (demonstrating uncertainty or lack of trust/understanding)
  • scowling or frowning face
  • literally “pulling back” or slouching in their seat
  • defending past behaviors
  • consistently circling back to weight loss outcomes in conversation
  • beating themselves up for a lack of physical progress
  • reactive thoughts or behaviors when things don’t go the way they wanted, etc

So then, when we notice these things happening, what should we do? The goal is to figure out (a) what they are afraid of losing by approaching things in this way, (b) what they are afraid of happening that they don’t feel prepared for and (c) what they need to let go of (thoughts, beliefs etc) in order to fully trust in this process. Try using the following question in all scenarios to open up the conversation around their resistance and create an access point to explore it deeper with them:

I can feel some resistance coming up around {insert topic of discussion}, would you mind if I asked what’s coming up for you right now – what are you thinking/how are you feeling/what about this feels scary?

Step #3 | Nail The “Continuation Conversation”

The best way to nail the “continuation” or “re-sign” conversation actually starts with the way you set up the structure of your program, and how you sell people into it. There are endless ways to set up the pricing and duration structure of our programs – and to say I’ve tried them all is no understatement. But by far the best way I have found to set up my programming to maximize client commitment, retention and results? Is actually also the most simple:

  1. Let your prospect know that you have a 3 month minimum commitment for all new clients because the nature of the work that you’ll be doing together requires you to have the space and time to explore the depths of what’s really causing them to think, feel and act in the ways that they are – and narrow down the best way for them to effectively create transformation there.
  2. And then, you’ll let them know that the goal is to get them to a place within those 3 months where if they chose to continue executing on their own then they would have what they would need to be able to do so, but that if you decide together that its best to continue supported them with their progress beyond the initial 3 months, that they will simply be billed month to month with no commitment and that when they feel ready to go out on their own, t0 just let you know and you will cancel their payments.

This ^^ accomplishes a couple of things:

  • First, we get an initial short term commitment – people feel much more comfortable with a shorter term commitment (because remember – this is what they have been conditioned to expect).
  • Second, we let them know that their journey will not be done at 3 months in an indirect way which gets them to subconsciously buy-in to a longer duration with (or without) you.
  • And Thirdly, it let’s them know that your time together isn’t necessarily over at 3 months – that continuing on together will be a conversation that you will initiate and that you will decide together as a team what the best next step forward is for them.

The last step is where most coaches get it all wrong. You must always remember that “expectation is everything” – which means if you sell them into a “3 month program” then the unwritten expectation is that “I will be done at 3 months” or worse “I will reach my goal in 3 months”. This mistake is what causes the “re-sign” conversation to feel extra turbulent. By pre-framing them in the way outlined above, this conversation becomes expected and re-signing east!

Initiating The “Continuation Conversation”

At around the 2 week-mark from the time their 3 month initial commitment is set to expire is when you want to initiate this conversation. Remember, you have already pre-framed them prior to this moment, so starting the conversation should feel easy and natural. The key here is to speak with the intention of their communication. This means, speaking into the future as if you will be joining them there.

Bridge The Gap For Them

They want to know you see where they’re at, what they’ve accomplished (and what they didn’t). They want you to validate that they aren’t where they want to be yet and give them permission that that is okay. Don’t be afraid to pull to the surface these facts and look at them together.

  • What did they accomplish? Speak to these first
  • What didn’t they accomplish? Pull these forward next openly and honestly.
    •  “I know we were working towards {insert goal here} and we aren’t quite there yet. How do you feel about this?”
  • What is your plan to get them there?

Your client doesn’t want to hear “let’s just keep doing what we’re doing”, they want to know that you are actively engaged in the process and thinking ahead to what the next steps will be. Map out a tentative 3 month plan and propose to them what you think next steps could look like if you were to continue working together. And then, simply ask: “how does that feel for you?” – if they confirm that it feels good, then you are ready to get confirmation.

Getting Confirmation

The last step to retaining your client for the long-haul is to get their confirmation that they would like to enter into a recurring monthly partnership with you. In other words – get permission to bill them recurring until they say to “stop”. At this stage, you should already have their payment information in your system so that you can initiate auto-billing on their account. To get confirmation to move forward, the line that works seamlessly for me is:

“I’m so glad you agree with me. So then, to move forward together to work on executing that plan, would it be okay with you if we kept our scheduled calls the same? And is the card we have on file still the best one to use?”

Simple, to the point, and (most of all) clear.

In Summary

Retaining your clients comes down to vulnerability, open and clear communication, and a willingness on your part to recognize resistance and help them to look at their past conditioning and habitual reactions to their progress. If you can nail these 3 steps, your retention will skyrocket. And because of that? You’ll be well on your way to laying the firmest of foundations for a truly scalable business that no longer sucks you dry and burns you out. Congrats, coach!

And to help you navigate this, plus 15 other pivotal coaching moments?? I created the Coaching Conversation Revelation for you to download for FREE.

With this, you’ll quickly be able to dig into the top 15 “make or break” client conversations without ever worrying about saying the wrong thing or suggesting the wrong strategy.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY


And lastly, when you feel ready, I’d love to help you with this more closely inside of TriggerMapping – my certification and mentorship program where I work hands-on with a group of nutrition coaches to show them how to graduate from “just another nutritionist”…and become known as the go-to expert for creating life-altering transformation at the deepest level in every client they work with…

…plus show them how this level of mastery organically allows you to…

🤑charge the kind of money the pro’s do (we’re talking 1K/month here, love)…

📣keep your clients for as long as you want so you can escape the revolving door of clients coming in and going out

🙋🏼‍♀️have a waitlist of people who will pay you in advance just to save their spot in line

🌟only work w/ the clients who are ready for the deep work you’ve always wanted dig into without battling resistance or pushback

💫align your coaching program with how you want to serve your clients and live your life

💖walk away from every single coaching session with a deep knowing that you left your client a different person because of what you just did with them…aka: coaching crack

I mean, just think about it like this for a second.

You know that old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink?”

Well what if…you really could make it drink?

That’s exactly what I’m going to be teaching you to do with your clients.

So if you feel ready to be so much more than what you were traditionally conditioned to think was possible for you?

👉🏼Just fill out this short 2 minute application form to let me know where you’re currently at. 

I’ll reach out to you and ask you a few questions to see if I can help…If I can, I’ll shoot all the details over to you.

Thanks for reading! And be talking soon.

xx Laura

3 Steps To Easily Overcome Why Your Client Can’t Stick To Their Diet

By Articles, Behavior Change Psychology No Comments

Join ranks with the creme-de-la-creme of coaches and confidently know you do 90% MORE for your clients than almost everyone else out there…

Have you ever wondered why some clients get incredible results with us…while others just always seem to struggle? It can drive us crazy, especially when we 100% know that we give every client the same amount of support…the same detailed feedback…the same strategies and customization…yet it feels like we just can’t quite break through to some as easily as others?

Well…what if I told you that once you understand exactly how to access a little-hidden gem that is rarely used as an asset in coaching (let alone a strategy!), that you will be able to guarantee results for anyone you work with. Plus…by using this as the foundation of your nutrition programming moving forward? You’ll never hit a client roadblock again that you won’t feel equipped to move through.

So what is this rarity?

It’s actually not rare at all. It’s a little something called our PERSONALITY…aka: your new secret weapon to achieving true mastery with your clients in session (and with your own mind as well). And in this article we’re going to explore what it really is and how to use it to guarantee success for every client you work with (plus grow a little yourself in the process 🤫)

via GIPHY

What It Takes To Succeed At Predictably Changing Your Clients Relationship With Food…

Think about it like this for a second.

When you strip away all our nutrition knowledge and coaching “protocols”…our customized programming…our bonus macro guides or recipe pdfs, our accountability, etc…what are we left with? Us…and them. Two humans collaboratively working to achieve a goal. Their goal. The thing is, when we rely on those things^^ to get to their goal? We’re skipping over the very foundation of mastering predictable change. It’s as if we willingly traded in our AK47 for a handgun with one bullet. And this risky game of russian roulette we’re playing? Means we have to be pretty lucky to unload that single bullet on the first try.

I mean, sure. Sometimes we pull the trigger and the bullet hits the target easily and effortlessly. But more often than not, we are left pulling the trigger over and over and over again trying to find something that “works”, am I right? And a lot of the time, when we fail to find anything that works to keep our client on track, committed, accountable or focused on doing the things they need to do? We feel like we’re failing them…and they feel like they’re failing us.

But. Is our bullet (read: our plan) really to blame? Or is there a way to always come to the table fully loaded? Well, when we look deeper into what the true issue is…we can see that even the best plan in the world wouldn’t work if the client can’t stick to it, right? That much is obvious. But if you take this one step further still…the reason the client can’t stick to it extends much deeper than simply layering on another accountability check in or “mindset hack”.

Our Clients Brains Are Hardwired To Fail

Basically, there are conditioned patterns deep in their psyche that keeps them stuck in a loop of thinking, feeling and behaving in very specific (often predictable) ways when it comes to food and the way they have learned to use it.

To come to the table “fully loaded”, then (or in other words, to be able to guarantee that even when the external plan “fails”, they will still see radical change 100% of the time)…means your approach must extend as deep as those patterns we’re trying to change. You can’t swim with the sharks, after all, by tanning on the beach.

via GIPHY

By understanding the way your clients view the world, the meanings they attach to what’s happening around them (including you and your program) and how to evoke change there – in the deepest parts of their subconscious – is how I have been able to transform eating patterns of hundreds of clients without ever really talking about food at all. This is how you turn your nutrition program from “the entire plan” to simply the amplifier of a much deeper plan. One where the shifts taking place are occurring in their identity.

Accessing The Untapped 90%

Before we start to break down exactly what it is you need to do with your clients to evoke deeper change, I’d first like to help you see how limited we have been up until this point with the plans we’ve been writing and the way we have been coaching.

If you look at this pie chart 👇

You will see a small 10% slice indicating where we are “traditionally” trained to focus with our clients. This piece encompasses things like check-ins, customized plans, accountability, community, training programs…basically anything and everything you give them to help them make a different choice than they one they are currently making, or rather ↣ take a different ACTION.

However, you can see that there is a much larger area that we could be using to help our clients reach this same outcome faster, and much more permanently.

This 90% represents three core things:

  1. Our hidden subconscious triggers and the meanings we automatically attach to each scenario we find ourselves in
    (ie: imagine a house full of screaming kids, and thinking this means that you’re a bad mom who doesn’t have her shit together)
  2. The beliefs and thoughts we have about the situation and/or ourselves (i.e. “it’s impossible to take care of myself)
  3. The emotions we feel because of those ^^ thoughts (i.e. stress, anxiety, frustration, loneliness)

And it’s because of this ^ automatic pathway that we know what action to take (i.e. reaching for the ice cream sitting in her freezer after the kids finally go to bed)

Or more simply illustrated:

💥TRIGGER ↣ 🤔THOUGHT ↣ 💖EMOTION ↣ 💫ACTION

 

But the thing is, this is a pre-programmed pathway in your brain that runs automatically the millisecond your brain attaches that meaning to the triggering event. Which means (and this is massively important, so pay close attention):

Anything you do to change her decision to eat ice cream that doesn’t directly shift something at either the trigger, thought or emotion level is ALWAYS a temporary solution (aka: everything you’re traditionally trained to give them or do with them to elicit a different decision or action is not going to work long term). Unless you ALSO shift something in her at a deeper level, the pathway will never cease to exist, and she will continue to have the internal desire to cope with food under stressful situations.

So then, the next obvious question is, of course: how do we do this? How do we shift her trigger, thought or emotional reaction to the situation?

But before we venture into the how, there’s one more layer to this that we need to look at. The fastest way to access what is triggering someone, and their thoughts and feelings about it is to gain access to their core identity (or personality) as they relate to food, themselves, and the world around them. Afterall, if we don’t fully understand WHO we’re dealing with, how are we supposed to change them?

 

What Is A “Personality”, Really Tho?

When I say “personality”, what words come to mind? Maybe things like: outgoing, funny, shy, introverted, loud, excitable?

Now what about if you hear me say “identity”? Maybe you think of things that are important to you, your values and morals, what you like or don’t like, your beliefs, things like that?

Okay…now what if I said “ego”? 🤢🤢

What comes up for most people here is this idea of being self-centered, arrogant, or narcissistic even. We have been conditioned to attach a negative connotation to the word and what it means when we “have an ego”.

But the truth? Is that we all have an ego all of the time. In fact, your personality, your identity and your ego are all one in the same.

They are simply a cumulation of the meanings that you attach to the things you think, the beliefs you have, the emotions you feel, the environments you’re in, the people you’re around, the core needs you have and how you relate to all of it.

Our brain is a meaning-making-machine, nothing more. The way we know the colour blue is “blue” is because we were taught that it is so. Just like we learned that when someone interrupts you that “they are rude” or when the scale goes up “I am fat”. The tricky part is that most of the world operates completely blind to this fact. They believe every single thought they think, even though these thoughts are often subconscious patterns that hold no real truth or weight in the bigger picture.

For example, where our nutrition clients are concerned, a common thought might be: “I’m so stressed, I just need a little pick-me-up (aka: sugar)”

But is this thought really true?

Or have they simply been conditioned to cope with stress by eating sugar for a quick dopamine hit in the brain?

Don’t get me wrong, that sure feels good temporarily. But when it comes to helping our clients cut out their cravings and reach their goals, might it be more helpful to explore what it was that TRIGGERED the thought “I am stressed” rather than stack their nutrition plan with “guilt free treats” and extra accountability check ins?

100% of the time.

 

Help Them Out Of Their Armor

I hope this is all making a tonne of logical sense, but putting it into practice can often feel a little…intangible, right? That’s because it is. We can’t track or measure someone’s identity, or their rate of change here…we don’t have metrics to follow or industry standards to reference. But that’s what makes it so worthwhile and fun! When you strip away the black-and-white thinking we’re so used to operating within, you learn to rely on connection and communication as cornerstones to your coaching programs more so than any tactic or strategy your certification taught you.

But to be clear, you can’t just add the question “tell me about your identity” to your intake form and think that’s gonna give you what you need. Remember – most of what makes people “tick” happens entirely subconsciously (“Who are you?” is one of the hardest questions to answer, afterall) Which means that if we want to create really powerful change with every client we work with? We need to get comfortable doing a little digging in the beginning. Here’s where to start ⇣

Identity is very intricate. So to make it simple, I’ve chunked it down into the 5 most important areas you’ll want to be on the lookout for inside of your consultations and coaching sessions. This is the same pathway we went through already, just in a little more detail as we prepare to access areas of change opportunity:

  1. The associations that are made between something OUTSIDE of them (another person, object, environment or situation) and what that MEANS to them because of their previous experience with it (ie) My boss seems irritated with me today, I must have done something wrong.
  2. The beliefs they have about themselves and the world around them (ie) My boss always needs to be pleased with me and my work
  3. The invisible “rules” they live by because they hold those ^^ beliefs (ie) Stay late to show him that I am a valuable asset to the team and to feel recognized
  4. The thoughts they habitually have about themselves and food due to the associations their brain is making (see #1)…ie:I hate not knowing what he is thinking, did I do something wrong? What if he fires me, I can’t lose this job, I’m already so stressed financially, What should I do? Etc…
  5. The habitual emotional reactions they have to these thoughts (emotion is one of the most powerful parts of our identity that drives our actions. But remember — there cannot be an emotion without there first being a thought that triggered it…ie: Anxious, nervous, unfocused, and irritable)

AND THEN the resulting action: Maybe she eats 2 doughnuts left in the staffroom…or grabs takeout on the way home because she’s so “tired” from running mental and emotional marathons all day long.

This is a very simple, yet common, example that you will likely come across in your own clients. Can you see from the above sequence of events that the problem had nothing to do with the doughnut box someone left open in the staffroom? Or her lack of willpower on the way home? Yet this is where we usually try to strategize by telling her to “keep healthy snacks in her desk” or to “write herself a motivational sticky note on her rear-view mirror” to help her bypass the drive-thru on the way home. When the real issue at hand? Was the automatic association her brain made when she saw her boss in a bad mood and her reaction to it.

When we look deeper than simply stopping the action of eating the doughnut, we dive into the subconscious pathway that preceded that action and can unearth what it was that really triggered that action in the first place. Imagine you could unlink the association she is automatically making that if someone meaningful in her life is upset, she must have done something wrong? We would fundamentally dissolve this coping pattern under any other similar circumstances as well, instead of offering situationally specific surface level advice. In other words – if you dissolve their triggers, you dissolve their need to cope and you dissolve their unhealthy relationship to food without relying on your nutrition plan at all.

 

The 3 Steps To Engineering A Powerful Shift To The 90%

First, remember that the only way we know how to respond in any situation is simply because we have automatically attached meaning to it. Without meaning, the event is meaningless, and we would never feel the need to cope with food because it happened. What’s important to understand about meaning is that meaning is formed over the course of our lives based on experiences we have had, or beliefs that were imposed upon us. If we circle back to Becky, the mom from our previous example with a house full of screaming kids, let’s look deeper into why this event triggers her to feel so anxious and stressed.

  • It’s possible that when Becky was growing up, her mom was very strict and taught her how kids are and aren’t supposed to behave.
  • Perhaps when Becky was out in public with her mom, this was reinforced by her mom saying things like “Becky, please behave, don’t embarrass me” or “Becky, you’re being too much, settle down and be quiet”
  • Maybe her mom’s rigid rules around the home taught Becky that in order for her to get love, she needs to always be perfect, never messy, excitable or wild.
  • Now, when her kids are acting out, its triggering this pathway in Becky’s brain that was created as a child that tells her “this is wrong, I need control and order in my house, wild kids aren’t good kids, my mom would judge me for letting me kids be so rambunctious”
  • Yet, this anxiety is all stemming from a core desire to be who she needs to be in order to receive love and acceptance from her mom.

💥💥POWERFUL STUFF, right?!  

Here’s how you can begin to practice unearthing these deeper meanings in session:

Step #1: Assume in triggering situations that there is a deeper meaning they are attaching to what is happening (it’s NEVER just about the food)

 

Step #2: Start pulling on the string by exploring new perspectives. 

  • “What was happening in your environment in the minutes and hours before you overate on ice cream?”
  • “How did that environment make you feel?”
  • “What thoughts were you having?”
  • “How did you feel in your body? What emotions were you experiencing?”
  • “So what I’m hearing is that you believe that kids should not be so rambunctious and should always be calm and listen to their mother, is this true?”
  • “How do you treat others and yourself because you think this thought?”
  • “Who would you be without this thought?”
  • “Where did you first learn to believe this?”
  • “How did it make you feel when you were told to be quiet as a child?”
  • “Do you feel like you are being seen and loved fully by your mom/husband/children?”
  • “Is it possible that this scenario is actually triggering something deeper in you because of a desire to feel seen and loved by the important people in your life?”

 

Step #3: Explore a new meaning with your client

  • “The next time your kids are going crazy, how would you prefer to show up in this situation?”
  • “What do you think is really going on with your kids? Are they trying to be disobedient, or something else?”
  • “How do you want to make your kids feel in these moments?”
  • “How do you want to feel in these moments?”
  • “What will you tell yourself the next time this happens?”

Notice here, that you are not telling them what is happening. You aren’t making assumptions or trying to fix the situation by giving them a strategy or a tactic to try the next time they’re “craving ice cream”…your only role at this stage is to hold uncomfortable space and ask exploratory questions to allow your client to figure out for themselves what is truly going on.

Sometimes, this conversation is enough to radically shift them to the point where they will never feel the need to cope with food in that scenario ever again simply because instead of attaching a negative meaning to what is happening, they have re-attached a new liberating meaning. It  might even be helpful to have your client write this out as a mantra to come back to if these scenarios continue to feel triggering. For example:

“When my kids are being wild, they want my love and attention, I never want my children to feel like they are too much or that they need to be perfect to receive love from me. I forgive myself for hiding away my true wild heart and shrinking myself for so long, I choose to play, laugh, and be present in these electric moments with my family. This is how I receive true love, not the illusion of love I have been trying to create out of control.”

However, in some cases, this one conversation will not be enough to break the chain of subconscious events and we will need to practice much more awareness and presence in these uncomfortable moments with our clients to make the shift a permanent one.

 

Uncomfortable awareness and presence is the key

In order to arm your client to navigate a triggering event on their own, without needing you on SOS text standby to talk them off the ledge, use these steps;

🕵️‍♀️FIND IT:  help them to get out of their head and into their body to identify their “warning signs”. Their physical symptoms of being triggered is often the easiest way for them to self-identify that their mind is being “hijacked” and to remind themselves that conscious awareness is all they need to break the pattern.

💖FEEL IT: encourage them to try to identify where in their body they feel the emotion bubble up, what does it look like, feel like and tell them? By doing this, you are slowing down their reactivity and bringing them into the present moment with acceptance instead of judgement

🤸‍♀️FLIP IT: leave them with two to three of the most powerful questions that shifted things for them while you were on the phone together. Have them write these on a sticky note or keep them in their phone so they can reference them if they forget. The goal here is to remember the new meaning they are forming around this event, the thoughts they want to have about what is going on around them, and how this will make them feel moving forward. If you need to attach a new action to this step for them to take (instead of their pre-programmed coping action) this can be helpful as well.

 

In summary…

…in order to graduate from “just another nutrition coach” who only accesses 10% of the behavior change equation – and become a true transformational expert who is able to create powerful change in the untapped 90% ? It’s these conversations, connections and questioning strategies that must be mastered.

To help you do this faster? I created the Coaching Conversation Revelation for you to download for FREE.

With this, you’ll quickly be able to dig into the top 15 “make or break” client conversations without ever worrying about saying the wrong thing or suggesting the wrong strategy.

👉🏼CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY


And lastly, when you feel ready, I’d love to help you with this more closely inside of TriggerMapping – my certification and mentorship program where I work hands-on with a group of nutrition coaches to show them how to graduate from “just another nutritionist”…and become known as the go-to expert for creating life-altering transformation at the deepest level in every client they work with…

…plus show you how this level of mastery organically allows you to…

🤑charge the kind of money the pro’s do (we’re talking 1K/month here, love)…

📣keep your clients for as long as you want so you can escape the revolving door of clients coming in and going out

🙋🏼‍♀️have a waitlist of people who will pay you in advance just to save their spot in line

🌟only work w/ the clients who are ready for the deep work you’ve always wanted dig into without battling resistance or pushback

💫align your coaching program with how you want to serve your clients and live your life

💖walk away from every single coaching session with a deep knowing that you left your client a different person because of what you just did with them…aka: coaching crack

I mean, just think about it like this for a second.

You know that old saying “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink?”

Well what if...you really could make it drink?

That’s exactly what I’m going to be teaching you to do with your clients.

So if you feel ready to be so much more than what you were traditionally conditioned to think was possible for you?

👉🏼Just fill out this short 2 minute application form to let me know where you’re currently at. 

I’ll reach out to you and ask you a few questions to see if I can help…If I can, I’ll shoot all the details over to you.

Thanks for reading! And be talking soon.

xx

Laura

Your Clients Didn’t Really Hire You For Weight Loss

By Articles, Client Connection & Communication No Comments

When our clients hire us to help them lose weight, we habitually put on our industry knowledge hardhats and bring our best evidence based strategies to the table to get them where they want to go.

But just because that’s what you think they hired you for doesn’t mean that’s *all* you’re going to give them…

Now before you scroll away thinking this is just another hypey article telling you the same boring message that “they won’t really be happy when they reach a numerical goal” and “it’s about more than weight loss”…consider this.

Just because you logically know this…how confident are you that after your clients finish working with you that the new lifestyle you worked so hard with them to create is truly permanent?

There’s a spectrum that change happens on, and how permanent that change is for someone depends how far along that spectrum you are able to move them during your time together.

On one end of the spectrum there’s the type of coach who can create change in the moment – this can be powerful and impactful but doesn’t last long term.

And then on the other end of the spectrum there’s the type of coach that can create such powerful change in their clients that they then go on to create the same powerful change in others…

The reality is that if you are *anywhere* on the spectrum, you’re already ahead of most of the coaches out there who struggle to create any meaningful change beyond what they were taught to do in their textbook.

There’s a big difference between learning what science tells us *should* happen…and knowing what to do when it doesn’t.

So when your clients hire you to lose weight…it’s up to you to decide how deep that change really goes. 

And in the next 5 minutes I’m going to show you what your clients are really paying for, how to make sure you fall on the change spectrum with everyone you work with, and how to release the external result from your conscious so you can operate with clarity and confidence always.

Belief
What people are really paying for isn’t weight loss

Symptoms:
-feeling frustrated that your clients can’t stop comparing themselves to others, obsessing over the scale or measuring their success by how much smaller they get

  • Can’t figure out how to talk to your clients about the bigger picture
  • You fall into the trap of justifying their investment in you by how much they lose
  • Makes you feel like a bad coach when they don’t lose weight
  • Becoming reactive and dropping your rates, trying random stuff you normally wouldn’t consider just to keep them as clients
  1. You’re making assumptions about why your clients hired you (making them happy is easier than making them change)
  2. Your need for significance is driving your reaction to their uncertainty or frustration
  3. Weight loss is the surface level goal – they believed that you were a vehicle to move them away from their current pain. Define their pain, and open up many more avenues to achieve this in the absence of weight loss
  4. Babysitting their investment undermines what they really need from you

Stop Feeling Trapped By Science: Here’s How To Coach Like A Pro

By Articles, Personal Growth & Expansion No Comments

Have you ever had one of those clients where no matter what you’ve tried with them their weight just never seems to budge?

(I mean, it’s basically at the point where you wish you could get them to check to see if the batteries in their scale need to be changed…)

How could this one plan have gone so wrong, you think.

…and to boot you have your coaching call with her in 45 minutes…what the actual hell are you going to pull out of your butt to convince her that you have this all under control?

Panicked, you start scrolling through facebook groups and crossing your fingers that someone has experienced something similar and has the answer you’re looking for.

You text a couple friends who are online coaches as well and open up to them about the difficulty you’re having with this one client (which takes a lot of courage because it feels like you’re risking sounding like a dummy to them in the process…)

But every random thing you’ve thrown at her already… from working on their digestion to checking their hormones…cycling their macros to intermittent fasting……is the same stuff that’s getting regurgitated back to you no matter who you ask or where you look.

In the next 5 minutes I’m going to share with you exactly why this client isn’t losing the weight she (technically) should be, and how you can easily start to get the scale to move by focusing on a few simple (but key) areas.

If you can get this right your clients are going to look at you like you’re a damn jedi…

And if you totally mess it up you’re actually no worse off…so open your minds and let’s jump in.

What works for one person doesn’t work for everyone

When we’re working with weight loss clients, the first thing to remember is that everyone is unique. Their physiology – yes. Their goals – of course. But also how they relate to the world around them, what they believe they need to do to change their body, what change actually means for them, and how their identity is shaped by their current habits and behaviours.

Think about it like this…when someone isn’t able to lose weight using the same plan that worked for every other client before them, we can safely say that the plan isn’t the problem. It’s the past patterns of the person executing the plan that we need to zoom in on (or in other words – their beliefs). Beneath the macros and the recipes, the portion sizes and the meal timing…is a person with needs and beliefs and emotions that govern every decision they make, and every outcome they get.

Very simply, people make decisions that we *think* will meet our needs. This allows us to subconsciously move away from pain and towards a certain amount of pleasure. So when our clients are deciding what to eat or how to act, they will usually choose the path of least resistance away from pain. 

For example, if a client can’t stop eating cheeseburgers because they absolutely love them (and they feel sooooo good when they’re eating them that they forget about their problems in the world around them)…and we tell them to eat salads instead of cheeseburgers and to exercise 3 days a week (something they hate, is painful for them and they feel embarrassed doing …)

How long is this person going to stick with the plan we gave them?

Initially they will try because they feel motivated and they know that the long term outcome is the pleasure of reaching the goal they want to achieve…

But remember in the short term the choice that takes us away from our pain the fastest is often the one we go with. So eventually they’re going to give into the behaviour that removes pain in their life (instead of the one that they think actually does the opposite – eating salads and going to the gym!)

The way to truly evoke change in someone on a deep level is to first figure out what they are currently doing that they perceive to be a vehicle away from pain in their life.

If you can do that? You have everything you need to make any plan work for them.

Learn To Trust Your Gut

You know how sometimes when you’re talking to your clients they say something that sets your coaching spidey senses off? There’s that feeling in your gut that whispers to you “this is important, there’s more here”…but you uncomfortably push it aside because your judgey evidence based voice takes over with “how would you even know where to help them with that”, or “there was nothing about this in your textbook”

Think of it like this…by learning to trust our gut and follow the trail of breadcrumbs our clients are leaving for us inside of every conversation we have with them is how we begin to shed our beginner skin and evolve into the confident pro we all have inside of us. In other words, to feel truly confident as a coach and to be able to guarantee results for our clients, we must learn to use our textbook as a guide and our gut as the gospel.

Most coaches, up to this point, have been using them the other way around (or ignoring their gut altogether). To begin to trust our gut means we must first recognize it’s presence and practice tuning into what it’s telling you with your clients. Understanding that the ideas you get, the thoughts you have and the questions that bubble up probably aren’t being taught in many (or any) certification programs. 

And that’s okay.

The art of coaching isn’t pre-defined. It’s empowering yourself to find your own flow with your clients – not to simply model what everyone else is doing. Sure, in the beginning this is how we build initial confidence and reassurance that we have the science figured out – that we’re good enough to help others get to an end goal. But with time, as your skills evolve, so too will your methods. 

Stepping outside the lines of what was taught to us to explore a new way of doing things that feels more aligned with us is powerful. We have the chance to help so many more people by giving ourselves the space to explore what is already naturally there within us – something we all have. But if we shut ourselves down to thinking creatively or uniquely about how to meet them where they are at, we may never feel like pros. We might forever stay trapped in the box our certifications place us in.

Most often it’s our fear of what others will think that stops us from trying unconventional strategies or talking about controversial topics. But if by doing so you are able to get your clients to their end result in a way that leaves them feeling happy and able to sustain the change…does it really matter?

Your Clients Know Best

Our clients know so much more than we do…about their life, what will work for them, what won’t work for them…what they like and what they will resist. They have been living this life that we only just entered as an “expert”. They hope that what we have will elevate them and make them happier in their lives. But we can’t assume we know the full story – we need them just as much as they need us.

The very best thing we can do as a coach is to place our clients on a pedestal from which all our decisions are governed. By this I mean, before solidifying the approach you’re going to take with them, what you’re going to work on with them, and how you’re going to navigate the changes they expressed were important for them…you must remember to ask this one very important question:

“How does that feel to you?”, “What do you think about this”, or “Tell me more about what you think we should try here”.

Even if their suggestions aren’t going to bring them closer to their goals and you end up taking things in a different direction altogether, bringing them into the conversation gives you 2 main advantages. (1) It brings them onto your team, it shows them that you respect them, that their opinion matters and that it’s not only safe, but welcomed, to give it. And (2) It ensures that you’re not just taking shots in the dark hoping that something will stick. It actually establishes you as more of an authority in their eyes because you are willing to customize their plan to the point where they feel entirely involved and confident in the process. Their adherence will increase, your retention will increase…and so will your results, referrals and reputation.

So then why don’t more coaches do this? The main reason I can see is that they are worried that by asking questions like these the assumption to their clients is that they don’t know what they’re doing, that they’ll look like an amateur, or that they shouldn’t trust you. 

I get it, I totally used to feel this way too. I used to give super scientific answers to questions, which I realize now was done to impress, not to serve. I used to make assumptions all the time about what I thought was best for my clients, which a lot of the time turned out to be entirely wrong. And I used to struggle with accepting when my clients stopped because I wasn’t getting them the results I had promised them – I would blame it on their adherence, their consistency, or even that they were lying to me.

But none of that was true – I just wasn’t willing to put myself in a vulnerable position, to lower my perceived status, or to give the allusion that I wasn’t “smart enough” to help them. And in doing so I missed out on so many amazing opportunities to help others thrive in their lives.

He Didn’t Eat For An Entire Year

I’ll never forget this one news story I read years ago. There was this guy who wanted to lose something like 200lbs. He felt like it was easier to just not eat than it was to say “no thank you” to the foods he loved,  to navigate his social life, and to re-learn how to eat “healthy” (and actually enjoy it). So he committed to not eat for an entire 365 days – true story. (Important to note here: he supplemented with necessary vitamins, minerals, and everything essential to his physical needs).

“Beginner-me” judged this harshly – “how is this healthy? He will never keep the weight off, he didn’t learn new habits, he wasn’t taught anything about protein, or macronutrients, or how to eat out at restaurants. He will for sure go back to his old patterns and regain everything he had lost…”

But he didn’t.

He has kept the weight off to date.

Now I’m not saying to get all of your clients to just not eat! But what I want you to understand is that this was entirely non-conventional and rooted purely in what he knew would and wouldn’t work for him. He trusted his gut, he educated himself on what “really* mattered. And he saw strong adherence and success long term.

Remember this story the next time you have a reaction to an idea you have or something non-conventional you see another coach doing with their clients. Ask yourself instead, what can I learn here? What opportunity could be here to help me expand as a coach? Could I use this, or some version of this, successfully with any of my clients?

By keeping an open mind you give yourself the gift of growth, and you give your clients the gift of better results because of it.

The fat loss X-factor: Learn the little known coaching skill that drives better client adherence and results.

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Never before has our world been so disconnected from itself. Our minds are constantly driving us outwards – always chasing something that will reinforce our beliefs about who we think we need to be and how we think we need to act in order to belong, be loved, and be happy. We are all essentially living life on autopilot, reacting to our environment and allowing it to control how we feel about ourselves and our life based on whether we are moving closer to or further away from that version of ourselves we have in our minds.

So, the problem therein lies. The more disconnected we are from our bodies, the more we are in our heads, and the stronger our minds become in keeping us small and safe. Our mind loves to taunt us with dreamy visions of  “one day” being and having all the things that will make us feel the way we desire. But what if having everything you want in life begins with disconnecting from your mind and its illusion that all of that “stuff’ exists outside of yourself? What if it all starts with actually reconnecting to your body? 

As change agents we have the power to deeply reconnect our clients to themselves in a way that fundamentally shifts the way they show up in the world (not to mention, how they feel about and interact with food). This article is going to help you explore and make sense of what it means to reconnect your clients to their true selves, and why this is such an overlooked piece to the complete transformation puzzle.

But without first exploring that inner shift yourself, you will never be able to truly grasp what it is you’re helping your clients achieve. So, then, we will begin with you. 

Afterall, if we want to help our clients to stop chasing external validation on the scale and detach from the illusion of what they think will make them happy…it would be reasonable to say that we must also do the same. We must first turn inwards, begin to trust our gut, and let the depth of our connection to ourselves, others, and the world determine our impact and our value on this planet. 

This article examines the 6 layers of connection we can learn to use to amplify our client’s lives, as well as our own. Let’s dig in.

 

  1. Connection with yourself as the change agent
    1. What happens when we disconnect from our gut, our gift and we act in the way we “should
    2. What connection to yourself can achieve in your business and life
    3. Connection to your purpose and your “non-world-peace” why
    4. What disconnection looks like
    5. How to reconnect with yourself

 

  1. Connection to your external influence- Our industry norms tell us exactly how much we are worth and how to measure when you’re good enough. The coach who has 60 clients is better than the coach who has 6…the nutritionist who went to university is better than the nutritionist who took a weekend course. We base our enoughness on external data points that are measured up against other people who are just as disconnected from their real power as you are.
  • Judging success off of others
  • Comparing self to others
  • Mind voice versus body voice
  • Feeling controlled by external factors
  • Measuring success on external achievement
  • Saying and doing things because of what it will get you externally
  1. Connection to your client and their connection to youClient – The people who do yoga and fall in love with it – it’s because of the way the classes and the instructors make the fell versus the results that are so surface level – connection can truly change someone’s life
    1. The power in client coach connection
    2. What it isnt
    3. How to build it and what it looks like
  1. Client connection with self
    1. The reason they use food to cope
    2. How to lead them to understand the importance in their journey
    3. How to get them to open up to their true emotions and recognize limiting thoughts
    4. Honouring themselves
    5. Feeling into resistance
    6. Using this as your north star

 

  1. Client connection to food – we use food to feel what we think we can only get by force, externally, but this only further disconnects us from that feeling – connection to self is all you need  you already have those parts inside of you, dissolve fear around emotion and guide people to discover the deeper parts of themselves
    1. The lover, the party animal
    2. Why food is the most common vehicle to create connection
    3. Changing the perspective – shifting how we connect through food
  2. Client connection to external influence
    1. Boundaries
    2. Expectations of others and what life should look like
    3. Surrender and acceptance
    4. Being present
    5. Letting go of the need to control

The Ultimate Guide To Ethically Jedi Mind-Trick Your Clients Into Changing Forever

By Articles, Behavior Change Psychology No Comments

If you’re a macro coach reading this right now, thank you. Thank you for having an open mind around the thoughts and predictions from a coach who was, not all that long ago, building her business (likely) exactly as you are right now. In the following article my goal is to show you that (a) you are more powerful than you are allowing yourself to become and (b) how to turn your innate desire to make the world a better place into a business that can sustain any life of freedom you desire for yourself.

If we’re getting really honest, you’re probably working online right now because you want to create a world of choice for you and your family. You want time to enjoy your life, travel the world, and experience life the way most people only dream about. You want to be in the top 1% of the 1%…thriving in a world where you get to live out your passion to transform lives…all the while transforming your own through your experiences.

That was my dream, too. But what I learned from starting out as a macro coach and then not only learning, but truly embodying with time what my true innate superpower actually was…is that coaching people on weight loss is easy. Weight loss in and of itself is not where the magic happens. Weight loss alone is surface level, temporary, and unfulfilling.

Take a moment to think about your best clients ever. Why were they your best clients? Sure they probably adhered to the plan you gave them, saw incredible weight loss or some other physical result during their time with you, and left you feeling so grateful, appreciative and truly changed by what you were able to do for them.

But what did you really do that impacted their lives so deeply?

Was it really the number on the scale that allowed this person to completely change how they felt about themselves, their worth and how they related to the world around them? Was it really the 27lbs they lost that finally gave them permission to show up in a new way, with a new energy and learn to love themselves again?

No, it wasn’t. I know that, and you know that. So then, what was it?

It was your unique superpower that allowed you to impact this person’s life more deeply than anyone before you had been able to do. It was your special gift – the real reason you’re meant to transform lives – that spoke to them in a way that completely changed their outlook on the world.

It’s also this gift, your superpower, that is going to bulletproof you in an industry that is changing more rapidly than ever before. If you’re going to create a life of freedom, choice and time, stepping into this power is how you will separate yourself from the macro-coach pack before it’s too late.

The Real Reason You Lack Confidence

If you don’t know whether you are or you aren’t a macro coach, let me just take a second to explain what I mean when I say that. Macro coaches use formulas (and often online calculators) to figure out exactly how many macro- (and something micro-) nutritient’s their clients should be consuming o a daily or weekly basis in order to achieve a desired physical outcome. You might discuss habits and behaviours around food, but you don’t truly understand how to guide someone to a different behaviour if it’s needed. You create boundaries around food encounters to prevent your client from veering off course (or off their prescribed macros). 

Now if you’re thinking…“I work with my clients on their mindset, this isn’t me”…keep reading. There is a lot of hype around “mindset work” online these days, so much so that we naturally fall into these buckets and give ourselves these labels even if we know we could be better, do better, and grow more in these areas. This is not coming from a place of judgement but rather enlightenment to the fact that perhaps, you still have room to grow in how you truly desire to help the people you work with. 

If you know there is more you should be doing to *really* help your clients transform, you are already ahead of the macro-coach pack. If you are self-aware enough to say “I don’t know everything and I want to learn how to be better for them”, you are already awakening to the idea that there is something deeper inside of you waiting to be unleashed.

The reason you don’t feel fully confident (and why you struggle to guarantee results) is because of these four main reasons:

  1. You don’t know how to quantify, measure or predict intangible results (such as how your client behaves in a social situation, for example)
  2. You aren’t sure if you’re allowed to coach them on their mindset, so you hold yourself back afraid of stepping into a grey zone, opening yourself up to criticism or failing your client.
  3. You don’t fully know how to create intangible change for people, you kinda feel like you’re winging it. You have conversations around mindset, you use some strategies you’ve learned from others, but you don’t have a clear map of what to do or when to do it.
  4. You know that without incorporating behavioural and mindset change, your clients physical changes are only temporary. And because of the last 3 points, you aren’t confident in your ability to truly help them reach the internal place they desire to get to. 

Where experience is the ultimate teacher, your ability to access it is only limited by the chains you place on yourself. What I’m about to show you is a really easy way to begin the process of becoming more for yourself and for your clients.

The Death Of Macro Coaching

It is my prediction that within the next 1-3 years the demand for a macro coach is going to become obsolete. Technology is advancing at an incredible rate allowing the average person to access their dietary targets more easily than ever before. Further, the advancement of the human awareness around the real underlying barriers to change is also threatening your role in their life. People, now more than ever before, understand that it’s not simply about the numbers any longer.

People want to feel something deeper during their transformational journey. They want to feel connected to something or someone in a way that challenges their previous thought patterns, limiting beliefs about themselves, and rebuilds within them the new thoughts and behaviours that will serve their happiness moving forward. People inherently want to be happy, and macros alone are not going to give them the experience they desire.

There are thousands of new health, wellness, nutrition and fitness coaches becoming certified every single year. But you, my friend, have something that can set you apart from everyone else out there. You have something that can bring you more money, more clients, more impact & more personal fulfillment than ever before. But the natural tendency in online business is not to trust this part of us. The natural tendency is to follow the herd and listen to what we “should” be doing instead of what feels right to us.

Here’s the thing about nutrition and fitness. There really isn’t anything new about it. We all have access to the exact same information, data, and research. So then, if from a logical perspective we are all playing on the exact same field, what makes one coach more successful than the next?

Themselves. It’s their personality, their unique perspective on the world, and their interpretation of the same information we’re all taught. They aren’t afraid to have an opinion about something, present a basic concept in a new way, and allow their superpowers to shine through the noise. There is nothing stopping you from being this coach. There are enough people out there for every single one of us to help. The issue is that where our superpowers are concerned, we have absolutely no clue how to figure out what is unique about us.

You probably think “there’s nothing special about me, I don’t have a unique story or experience to share, I’m just average.”

You, my friend, are anything but average. Here’s where I want you to start – keep in mind I want you to open yourself up to everything that comes to mind even if you cannot see the direct correlation to how “this thing” will help you, your clients or your business. 

  1. What is your story? Why did you become a nutrition or fitness coach? What pulled you in this direction? Take some time and write it all out in detail.
  2. What are 3-5 unique skills that you have that might be valuable to someone else?
  3. What are 3-5 unique things that you are extremely knowledgeable with that most others aren’t?
  4. What are 3-5 talents (or the result of your talents) that can be used inside of your business and what you do for others?
  5. What are 3-5 key connections that others don’t have access to that you can use inside of your business and life? 
  6. What are 3-5 unique things that are unique about your character? 

All of this together, collectively, is your unique superpower. You aren’t defined by one thing alone, it’s all of you that will allow you to be successful. It’s all of you that will set you apart. How can you lean into and use what you just detailed to help your clients better? To grow your business faster? How can you leverage those amazing parts of you to truly step into a business that fulfills you and sets you apart from the pack at the exact same time?

These qualities, experiences, stories, and talents are your entry point to helping others on a deeper level. You don’t have to coach them on their mindset in the exact same way that I coach them on mindset. But you do have a responsibility to let yourself be fully seen so that your clients, in turn, expose their vulnerabilities to you. This is the key to unlocking conversations that will transform from the inside – out.

How to Master and Measure Intangible Change

There are 8 key internal shifts most clients will need to move through to truly embody new habits and behaviours that will serve them and support the life they want to be living. The art of coaching is in figuring out what is the most prevalent phase for your client to focus on moving through at any given time in your journey together. These phases are fluid – they blend, overlap and affect each other. The difficult part is deciphering where to focus your clients energy first to create the biggest ripple in the pond.

In other words, you need to figure out where to start and then how to adjust your approach from there. In an effort to quantify the unquantifiable I have detailed below some criteria I intuitively move through to come to my best starting point so that you have a foundation upon which to stretch your own intuitive legs and begin to have deeper conversations that will lead to more powerful results.

First, the 8 internal shifts, in no particular order, are:

  1. The clients relationship with food and/or exercise
  2. How the client relates to other people and events in their life
  3. The client’s relationship with him or herself
  4. Discovery of the void the client is using food and/or exercise to fill in their life
  5. The internal-external link of thoughts and emotions to actions and outcomes
  6. Changing the lens through which the client views the world, their problems, and their ability to create solutions 
  7. Removing internal boundaries and building external boundaries
  8. Maintenance of their new internal and external environments

Let’s work through each of these shifts now, how to recognize this shift needs to occur, and how to know when it’s the right time to initiate the conversation about it.

Relationship To Food

Let’s start with the shift that almost everyone struggles with understanding, even if you feel like you have a relatively normal or healthy relationship to food. This is a double edged sword as your clients relationship to food is both intangible and very personal with a long history behind it. The thing to understand before diving into any conversation about how a person feels about the way they eat, what they eat and why they eat is this…

Their relationship to food has been passed onto them from their parents, who was influenced by their parents, and so forth. The deeper you dig into a client’s history with their family, the more illuminated the real underlying issues will become. Getting comfortable asking difficult questions about painful or traumatic experiences in their life is going to require a great deal of rapport before you breach the subject. 

Ultimately, the core question is this: “What role does food play in their life?” If you can discover which of the following faces food is embodied by for them (or what combination of the following) you have an entry point to access an open, honest conversation about where they are at currently – and also a dimly illuminated pathway that you can begin to lead them down. 

  1. The Lover –  when food shows up as a “Lover” in your life, what this really means is that the role food plays is to provide compassion, comfort and a sense of love or security – like you can depend on it as a constant in your life. You may feel like you lack this type of relationship with another human, and so you fill that void with food. Removing the masks you wear in the other roles you play in your life when you’re alone leaves you feeling vulnerable and you will often find yourself (over)eating. You hide this behaviour and will typically eat in a completely different way when other people are around. Your private relationship with food is for you to experience only, it is sacred and private.
  2. The Bad Boyfriend – when food shows up as a “Bad Boyfriend” in your life, you feel like it is constantly causing you to feel shame or guilt about how you interact with it. Sometimes fear or anxiety is an emotion that comes up when you feel like you can’t trust yourself around certain foods. You don’t believe you are ever making the right choices and that no matter what you eat you feel guilty for it. This is very commonly seen inside of impulsive desire coupled with immediate regret. There is a pull towards food that you’re unable to break free from, even though every interaction with it ends in some combination of disappointment, anger, or sadness.
  3. The Therapist – when food shows up as a “Therapist” in your life, it’s essentially holding a space of non-judgement as it provides a temporary sanctuary from all of life’s problems. This is similar to how the Lover presents, however in this scenario it is used as more of an escape from their reality,  rather than as a source of comfort or love. If you use food in this way you will often find yourself in the pantry eating crackers without remembering going there, or will find you have finished their plate without even noticing they started eating. This relationship is not as obvious because we are unaware of the voids we are filling. We are simply aware that we temporarily feel better and forget about life’s problems. This pattern is especially difficult to fix because the act of eating has become somewhat subconscious triggered by an underlying emotion you perceive to be negative. These patterns have been instilled over many years and often passed down to us from our parents.
  4. The Magician – when food shows up as a “Magician” it is there to provide habitual, mindless and instantaneous relief from boredom or monotony in your life. It’s used for numbing or to elicit a temporarily elevated state. You’ll notice people who use food in this way will often impulsively eat higher fat/sugar foods because of the immediate intrinsic reward it provides them. The act is always conscious in that you actively seek out these specific “feel good” foods. You might even find yourself going out of your way to access them.
  5. Cheerleader – when food shows up as a “Cheerleader”, the role food plays is to reward you or make you feel worthy or successful. If you use food in this way you often use it as a form of celebration. If you have this relationship to food you will often catch yourself justifying unhealthy choices because “you deserved/earned it”. Although celebrating around food is a healthy cultural norm that should not be demonized, this personification of food is more extreme. You often experience a loss of control and outwardly justify your behaviour with celebration.
  6. Party Animal – When food shows up as a “Party Animal”, its role is to provide a sense of belonging. It appears in this way socially, when we feel peer pressure or a fear of judgement and we act in ways that are adapted to a specific social group. Food may act as a “Party Animal” in some social circles, and not in others. What you need to understand about this personification is that it’s role is to make you feel more comfortable and accepted in a group of people. Examples of this could be simply ordering a burger and fries when you’re out for dinner with your friends because everyone else did (even though you really didn’t want to), or accepting a slice of pie from your mother-in-law because you don’t’ want her to know you’re trying to lose weight.

The next step to take outside of identifying where your clients currently are within these 6 archetypes is beyond the scope of this article, however I will create a future training on each of these archetypes and how to coach your clients through their next steps to success. In the meantime, give these some thought – which behaviours have you noticed within your clients? Have you noticed any of these within yourself? Awareness is the first step to change.

Relationship To Others

How your clients interact with, relate to and behave in the world around them is imperative to uncovering how they are going to be able to sustain the external results you achieve with them. Our goals aren’t achieved in a vacuum. Everything that happens around us impacts what we think, feel and do at every moment. The goal, then is three-fold:

  1. Understand what most strongly triggers the behaviours that your client is trying to change or stop
  2. Help them understand this learned reaction to the external stimuli
  3. Replace these habitual reactions with a response that is more conducive to the new behaviour you’re trying to integrate

Ultimately in these specific situations (or around these specific people) your client is unable to differentiate what is happening around them from what is happening to them. They are in a highly elevated fight-or-flight state even before anything happens. They have past memories and experiences of what happened before, how that affected them or made them feel, and what they are expecting to happen this time. Even if the same triggers do not occur, if the environment or the people they are around were the source of their previous trigger it is likely that they will behave in a similar protective way.

Their mind wants to keep them safe and protected, and their reaction to eat is one way that brings them comfort or a momentary excuse to avoid an uncomfortable situation in their current reality (this could be a combination of the Party Animal or the Therapist seen here). Help them identify the top three points and you will be able to really get them pointed in the right direction where their external environment is concerned.

Relationship To Self

Your clients poor relationship with themselves can feel like a heavy-hitting punch to the gut as a coach. It pains you to listen to them beat themselves up, talk badly about themselves, or just completely lack a belief in themselves or their ability to be successful. How they treat, think about and talk to themselves is a direct reflection of their beliefs about their worthiness and their readiness for the changes you’re working on creating together.

You know that when your client says things like “I hate what I see in the mirror” and “I failed again, just like I always do” that this feels icky to you…you wish you could help them move past those thoughts and just believe in themselves the way that you believe in them. Your instinct is to dismiss these comments and instantly reframe them into a positive. Not only do we not want to see our clients suffering like this, but we sometimes also feel super duper uncomfortable and want to move past that moment so that you can “get down to business” (where you feel on your game and confident about your ability to really help them). But here’s what you’re missing out on when you do that:

  • Your client is giving you a glimpse into the inner darkness that they are experiencing. What they actually verbalize to you is about 10X more muted than the war that is actually going on in their head. This glimpse inward is vulnerable for them, and they are often looking for an ally to shine a light where there is none. When you scuttle past their remark and tell them “don’t be silly” or “you just have to do XYZ” you are dismissing their very real and painful reality as “no big deal” – which makes them feel even more hopeless.
  • You are putting your feelings above your client. You avoided having a deeper discussion about it because YOU felt uncomfortable with the topic. You don’t always need to know how to “fix” the problem – sometimes simply holding the space for your client to express themselves openly, safely, and without judgement is creating more of a shift in them than you realize. Sometimes you feeling uncomfortable is necessary to help your client feel heard and understood
  • The opportunity to “pull on the string” they tossed you. There is always something bigger hanging on to the other end of the string they throw you…discovering what that is will open up the gates for how you can help your client truly create a transformation that shifts them to their core. The way you do this is to ask better questions if you want better answers that will lead you down this path.

For example, let’s say your client says something like: “omgosh I always eat so badly when my sister is in town…”

Where the typical response I see skips over that thread entirely and goes straight to “how-can-I-fix-this-and-get-her-back-on-track-mode”, You might respond with one of the following:

  • What is it about your sister being here that makes you feel like you aren’t able to stick to your normal eating routine?
  • Tell me about your relationship with your sister, are you two quite close?
  • What types of foods do you and your sister usually eat together? Do those foods feel nostalgic for you two? Help me understand better why that is.

Ultimately, learn to look for strings, pull on those strings by asking better questions, be willing to get uncomfortable in order to shine the light for your client, and be patient with the process of unravelling the mess of yarn they have in their head. Their relationship with themselves has been shaped and molded their whole life – it’s going to take patience and a whole lot of detective work to help them navigate their way out of the maze. 

Discovering The Void

There can be one big void like a crater in the earth, or a whole bunch of little voids like hail dents on the roof of a car after a storm. Either way, every person has them. We all have things we feel are missing (or subpar) in our lives (aka: our voids) that we use other things to fill them up with and pretend that they aren’t there.

Where your clients are concerned, many of them use food (or even exercise) in an unhealthy way to help them fill their voids out of disbelief or avoidance. If we didn’t do this, we wouldn’t eat for any other reason than to feed a hungry belly. But we do (review the 6 faces of food). And the reason that we do is because food is easily accessible, highly intrinsically rewarding, and predictable.

For example, Becky knows that when she feels sad because she failed her Chemistry exam that there is a pint of ice cream in her freezer that can make those sad feelings temporarily disappear. What Becky doesn’t realize is that she isn’t eating ice cream because she failed her exam…she’s eating ice cream because that’s what her mom would eat after she fought with her dad and would lock herself in her room crying with a pint of ice cream. Becky subconsciously learned from a very young age that sadness can be fixed with ice cream. The void in this example is not feeling worthy…and the filler is ice cream.

These behaviours are learned so early on that the client often isn’t even aware of it until you begin the process of peeling back the layers of why they do the things that they do, how they are really feeling when they reach for certain foods and what it is they believe this food is providing them.

The good news is that our filler foods of choice are predictable. Just like Becky will always reach for ice cream when she feels like she has failed or feels unworthy, most people have a few filler foods that become their habitual go-to’s. This is where to start in these scenarios. If you can identify a pattern with a specific food, you have now created a thread that you can pull on.

  1. Figure out what the correlation is between all of the events that cause Becky to eat ice cream that you have documented
  2. Ask Becky to describe, in her own words, the emotions she is feeling before (for becky, this would be unworthiness) and after (for Becky, this emotion might be love) she eats ice cream (this will uncover the face that ice cream wears to her)
  3. Ask Becky if she can think about a time when she was younger that she can remember her mom or her sister or her grandma who also used ice cream in this way
  4. If she can – make the connection for her
  5. Help Becky come up with an external trigger to create space between feeling her emotion and reacting by seeking out ice cream. Can she stop and recognize herself in the pattern
  6. Fill the void with something else – what else could Becky do to make herself feel loved? Could she call a friend, treat herself to a bath, or cuddle her pupper Maxie?
  7. Continue this process until she has integrated the new behaviour to her old trigger

Linking The External To The Internal

When your clients begin their external journey, more often than not they are expecting success here to also be reflecting in an internal change as well. This, however, rarely occurs – as you well know. The most obvious and well used example of this is a client who is incessantly chasing a certain number on the scale, expecting to feel differently in their life when they achieve this number. To their surprise (but not to yours) their experience of the world around them shifts only slightly with a massive drop off of this elevated internal experience a mere hours, days or (for the very lucky ones) weeks later.

External change will never, in isolation, produce internal change long term.

So, then, the question becomes…”how do we link the external with the internal?”

This begins in the very first interaction you have with your client from the questions you ask them and from analyzing their answers through this lens. That said, the effectiveness of these questions entirely depends on your ability to shift the lens through which you receive their answers.

At its most basic, you’ll want to become very good at “searching for strings”. These strings are attached to deeper inner workings that are causing your client to think and act in the ways that they do. Everything we believe about the world and every action we take in response to the world around us is taught to us. For your client, they are unable to understand this at first…they merely feel “out of control”, “unmotivated”, “broken” or “lazy” when they are unable to achieve the external outcome they’re searching for. 

If, then, when they tell you that they were “lazy” last weekend and didn’t get their meal prep done and so that’s why they weren’t successful this week…do you take this at face value, or do you recognize this story as a “string” to be pulled by asking questions such as:

  • What was it they actually did with their time last weekend?
  • Why do they associate that with being lazy?
  • Why do they say lazy like it’s a bad thing, what is their understanding of what lazy means?
  • How could they have made time to relax, yet still also set themselves up for success?
  • What was really going on here, did something happen personally that caused them to feel like they needed to create space from any additional energy demands?
  • If so, does this happen often in their life? Where else do they feel themselves shift into being “lazy” if this is their default to overwhelm?
  • Do they remember being called “lazy” when they were younger? How did that make them feel? What did they have to do or be in order to not be lazy?

Do you see how one simple statement can actually have a much deeper meaning?

You now know that these are all beliefs that were not theirs, originally. They were someone else’s and they were implanted into them over the course of their life. If you can find the string these beliefs are attached to – the ones that are preventing them from truly creating lasting change – you can pull on these strings gently over the course of your time together and gracefully unravel the tangled mess that is causing them a disordered relationship with food, with their body, or with how they view the world around them.

You will see these connections before they do, and when you discover one it is your obligation to help them also discover it in their own way. Asking questions to guide them down the path of making these connections on their own is the most effective way to do this as it doesn’t suggest your opinion of what they are experiencing, but rather coaxes them to form their own opinion through a lens they hadn’t previously considered. Pretty powerful stuff!

Once you can link their external actions to common internal beliefs, stories and thought patterns, you have what you need to then help your client also link these together. Once an understanding is created, you can push them to change both the internal drivers and external outcomes simultaneously by guiding them to recognize, challenge, and rewrite their default reactions into new empowering truths that will support their long term success.

Cultivating Ownership 

Many of your clients will come to you through the lens of playing the victim. You’ll notice this in their inability to take ownership of the choices they are actively making every single day that are ultimately guiding their progress towards their goals. This is a sensitive topic because done incorrectly, and you will appear to them as an insensitive asshole who doesn’t understand them and everything they are going through.

But done with finesse, you can jedi-mind trick your clients into stepping up to the ownership of every choice they have made with the realization that they, in fact, are in control of their life.

What you need to understand about the victim mentality in your clients is that likely they have been using this as an easily accessible defense mechanism for the majority of their life. They learned, at a young age, that when they were not happy with what they saw happening around them or to them, if they pushed blame onto something or someone else it felt better. They were more comfortable and accepting of the circumstances and it gave them a lens through which they felt safe operating. Even though they weren’t happy, even though they likely felt powerless and inadequate. They were more comfortable here than had they had to admit to themselves that they, in fact, could have chosen differently. That there is always something they could have done differently to create a different outcome.

The issue is that a lot of those choices are hard, painful, and uncertain. People are wired for survival…if the brain senses threat (even on an emotional level) it will push thoughts into your mind that are created to keep you safe. The issue here is that growth never blooms from a place of safety, and so your clients default victim mentality is in fact a major barrier to conquering their long standing goals.

Jedi-mind-tricking your clients is essentially what I like to call guiding them to their own conclusions. In this specific case, helping them step into ownership with the strong realization that they held the power to change all along and it was simply themselves that got in their way time and time again. 

The key to a powerful jedi-mind trick is, you guessed it, to ask better questions. This time, however, through the lens of the victim. Let’s take Becky again and use her as an example. Becky overate on the weekend, she went out with friends a few times and didn’t plan ahead for the occasions. In Becky’s case she struggles with the Party Animal face of food – where she morphs into whomever she needs to become in different social settings to feel accepted, loved and a deep sense of belonging. When you ask Becky about her weekend, she couples this with her infamous victim mentality shield. She says:

“I ate so bad this weekend, my friends called me up on Friday night to go out with them and I had already eaten dinner but they were going to this new restaurant downtown and I hadn’t seen them in forever so I HAD to go with them. And then they ordered all of these appies and drinks and I didn’t want to make a scene so I just went along with it all and before I knew it I was ordering midnight donairs and recovering with deep fried hash-browns from McDonalds the next morning”

This is a very common scenario you will come up against time and again. As we explored earlier, the default for many coaches is to go into “fix-it” mode because of the emotional discomfort that comes along with exploring this further with them. You don’t want to make them cry or feel any worse about what happened, so you just pick up and carry on as if it didn’t even happen. This creation of denial only prolongs the inevitable – that this will happen again – and creates an environment of “it’s okay to blame others for your choices” – where we know this is simply not true.

I would guide the conversation by using the following question sequence, adjusting accordingly based on the responses of the client:

  • “Becky, would it be okay if I asked you a few more questions about what happened this weekend? I’d like to help you move through this so that you feel more confident in navigating a similar event next time”
  • “Great, tell me more about how you felt when your friends called you up on Friday? Did you have a physical reaction to the phone call that you can remember? Anxiety, fear, worry, dread, etc?”
  • “When you were out with them, before anyone had even ordered yet, do you remember what you were saying to yourself? What was the dialogue like that was going on in your mind?”
  • “What would have happened, do you think, if you didn’t eat the same foods as them?”
  • “Did you consider telling them that you had already eaten dinner and you weren’t feeling very hungry?”
  • “Do you think you would have had just as much fun had you only had one or two drinks that night instead of the 5-6 that you told me you had?”
  • “Can you remember a time where you felt ashamed or embarrassed for not going along with the pack? What about earlier on in your life, maybe when you were little?”
  • “Do you see this type of behaviour around your peers pop up in other areas of your life? At work? With your family? With your boyfriend?”
  • “Do you feel like sometimes you wish you could feel more in control of your choices and act in the way that you really want?”
  • “What is stopping you?”

By continuing to guide the conversation in this way you are simply helping Becky create connections for herself around the ownership she needs to take over her actions. You are approaching the conversation from a place of curiosity and a deep desire to understand versus judgement, authority or blame. This process, you must understand, is extremely vulnerable for your client, but If you can make your client feel genuinely heard and safe to express themselves the breakthroughs you will create will be life-changing. 

Internal & External Boundaries

You’ve heard of creating boundaries. You’ve probably even attempted to coach your clients on keeping their boundaries firm in their lives. Most people have no concept of what a boundary actually is, because whether it’s internal or external – they’re still intangible. No one is going around with a literal fence built up around them (although a lot of our clients would probably love that). So explaining what a boundary is, and then holding that boundary firm, is challenging at best and fleeting most of the time.

The reason why external boundaries are so important where  physical transformation is concerned is because, as you now know, there are a lot of external triggers or motivators pulling us back towards past patterns that no longer serve us. In order to maintain a sense of who we are becoming and how we want to act with our new habits firmly in place, we must shut out the “noise” that was once there guiding our thoughts and behaviours.

Examples of this might include:

  • Getting clear about who are the people in your life who are loving and supportive versus who are the people who are the energy suckers – leaving you empty after an encounter. The boundary would be committing to making time only for those people who fill you up.
  • Putting a “flow day” in your calendar where you don’t book anything committal and you leave your day open to do whatever you feel you need to recharge – a yoga class, a walk outside with your fave tunes…anything.
  • Committing to disengaging from the toxic banter in the coffee room at work

That being said, there is a crucial step to this process that is often missed entirely and the reason why your clients struggle to maintain the boundaries you help them put in place.

Before external boundaries (commitments and intentions protecting your energy from outside forces) can be built up, internal boundaries (those boundaries in your mind that you have created to keep you “safe”) must first be shattered. What are examples of an internal boundary?

  • The way you habitually react to a situation that feels uncomfortable with defensiveness, anger, frustration, closing off, anxiety, etc.
  • The thoughts that play on a loop in your mind when you come close to the edges of safety and challenge yourself to grow (“I can’t do this”, “who do I think I am”, “I’m going to fail just like last time”, etc)
  • The beliefs you hold about what is possible for you and your life based on what you were taught to be true from your parents or adult figures growing up.

Think about internal boundaries like this >> in your mind you have built an electric fence around all of your current beliefs about yourself and how the world should be. You have ideals in there about how you expect people to behave, what you believe to happen in every type of situation, and how you think you should perform, act, think, or show up inside of this world.

Most people live their entire lives within this fence. Why? Because when something doesn’t happen the way we have conditioned ourselves to think that it should, or when we don’t show up the way that we have been taught is “right” or “acceptable” in order to receive that which we all crave (happiness, love, worth, value, belonging) we get a shock from the fence. We ventured too close to its perimeter. When we get shocked, it hurts! It takes us by surprise! We think, “that’s not what’s supposed to happen, something must be wrong.” But what we don’t realize is that this fence was built by our own design…and is the exact reason why we struggle to grow beyond our current beliefs and behavioural patterns. Because every time we have an opportunity to challenge them, we retreat out of fear of getting hurt.

We logically think that the fence is there to keep us safe – to keep intruders out. But it’s really there to keep us small…to experience life through a singular lens instead of expanding our vision to view the world and ourselves through multiple lenses. To stop reacting to what is happening around us and to recognize that we actually have no control over what happens around us and how the people in our life behave. Yet we are obsessed with trying to control every situation to fit the mold that we have pre-constructed. And when something doesn’t fit, our defense is to eat. Our defense is to lash out. Our defense is to accept failure. Talk badly about ourselves. We do anything we can to REINFORCE our current belief patterns.

How liberating it is to realize that in one single moment we can choose to step past that invisible electric fence, feel the pains of growth and view the world from a completely new perspective. So how do you help your clients step past their invisible electric fences? You help them recognize where their fence exists by helping them walk up to it until they feel the zap. They’ll know their zap – it will come in many different forms. But the place to start is the physical expression as it’s the most tangible. Ask them how their body physically felt in different challenging scenarios that they are facing. Often times their zap presents similarly in all of them. Most commonly your clients may experience tightness in their chest, knots in their stomach, anxiety well up inside of them, their face go flush, their body tense, etc.

Once they learn to recognize the zap, help them understand why its happening and encourage them to listen to the voice in their head when they feel their physical trigger. It’s going to be talking non-stop, telling them all of the reinforcing things they need to hear to retreat. Can they sit in that, feel it, and continue to push forward despite the pain and fear they experience? This is them stepping over the invisible fence into their new life. This process done over and over again will reinforce a new belief pattern in them that will support the self-worth and confidence they require to begin to build new external boundaries up to protect their new perspective on life.

That they are in control.

That no matter what happens around them, they get to choose how they respond.

And that they are capable of achieving anything they desire.

Maintaining The New External Experience

The final challenge your clients face is their ability to now guard their new lifestyle. The triggers that used to send them into a spiral have not disappeared out of this world. They still exist. It is merely your clients relationship with them that has shifted through the breaking of their internal boundaries and the construction of new external standards they hold themselves to.

The trouble with the deep work you have just finished guiding them through is that the triggers are like rocks getting hurled at their newly built walls (external boundaries). If we aren’t constantly reinforcing them through conscious thought and action, eventually they will crack and crumble. The internal shifts that occurred have the power to create lasting transformation, but just like anything precious in life it must be maintained and constantly worked on.

Some strategies that can help your clients maintain their new inner freedom and outer peace are:

  • Daily meditation focusing on quieting the mind and concentrating on the breath
  • Proper sleep and recovery from a busy lifestyle
  • Surrounding themselves with the people who love and fill them up the most
  • Consistent, daily check-ins on their pilot light – how much energy do they have to give and how do they need to protect the energy they keep for themselves
  • Maintenance of literal boundaries in their schedule
  • Time unplugged (daily for one hour and weekly for one full day)
  • Consistent conscious awareness of thoughts. Notice the ones that do not serve you and let them go, replacing them with new empowering truths
  • Consistent conscious awareness of zaps, persistently stepping through them into growth

In Summary, your clients transformational journey is unpredictable, emotionally draining as a coach a times, and requires you to lead from the front by actively practicing all of these same strategies in your own life. These practices don’t only support those chasing a physical goal in their body. These also apply to your business goals, your personal evolution into entrepreneurship, and stepping into the person you must become to hold and keep the success you claim you desire. My suggestion? Move through each of these 8 inner shifts yourself and use your own personal experience with them as a launch pad to begin similar conversations with your clients. The thoughts you’re having right now about “I’m not qualified”, “I don’t know how”, & “this makes me feel uncomfortable” are signs that you have your own evolution to activate within you. If you can find the courage to grow in this way, uncover your unfair advantage in this world, and use that as leverage to elicit deeper change in your clients your role in this world will never be extinct. You will cement your value in your own mind and the minds of every person you have the pleasure of guiding to the discovery of their most bad-ass selves.

How To Find & (Ethically) Use Leverage To Create BIG Change

By Articles, Behavior Change Psychology No Comments

Does it ever feel like you want it for your clients more than they want it for themselves? Like no matter what you say, how many bomb new recipes you provide, or how many times you “switch it up” at their request – nothing you do ever seems to get them to stick with it?

As their coach, what are you supposed to do when Becky just can’t seem to stop self-sabotaging? And more importantly, is this something that you should be able to coach her through or should you write her failure off as “not your fault, you did everything you could…sometimes people just aren’t ready to change…”

The answer is pretty simple, actually. It just requires you to get a little leverage (and learn how to ethically use it) so that Becky can start showing up for herself instead of showing up in the Krispy Kreme line every morning…

More specifically, I’m about to give you the jedi-skills you need to make even your most difficult clients coachable so you can sleep soundly at night trusting that your approach is (in fact) more effective than a Dr. Phil episode.

Understanding Why People Change

There is one reason, and one reason alone, that people will change how they act, think or feel about something. I’d like you to think of these three things (the combination of behaving, thinking and feeling) collectively as “patterns” we establish over the course of our life.

Every pattern we have created over the course of our life was done so in response to something that happened to us in our environment (a trigger). We combine that experience with a belief about it being either good for us or bad for us.

As an easy example, imagine that when you were little your mom would buy no-name coffee because you were too poor to afford anything else. She would make it really watery and never had any sugar to put in it because that cost too much money. Even though your environment is not the same as it was when you were younger, the smell of cheap coffee (your trigger) is linked to a great deal of discomfort (or pain) for you because of the association (or belief) you have about what that means. And so because of that you only buy expensive Starbucks coffee.

Is it possible, however, that someone who did not have that same life experience could enjoy no-name coffee? Yes, of course it is – the no-name coffee is not the source of the pain.

So then with your clients, is it possible for them to also link negative experiences to behaviours that you perceive to be normal, or even enjoyable? -Yes!

Is it also possible, then, for their negative behaviours (the one’s you’re trying to help them change) to be linked up with a certain amount of pleasure for them? – Of course.

If an action that brings a certain degree of pleasure for your client (even if it negatively impacts them in other areas – like eating fast food for example) is attempted to be replaced by a behaviour that is perceived as uncomfortable or painful (even if the long term result would be pleasurable) your client will not be able to achieve this long term.

They will always fail and resort back to old patterns because of the large amount of energy (or willpower) it would take for your client to fight their natural tendency to move towards pleasure and away from pain (based on the meaning they have associated with those actions)

Make sense?

So then, knowing this…do you still believe that self-sabotage is real if your clients are seemingly just subconsciously reacting to environmental triggers Let’s discuss that next…

Is Self-Sabotage A Myth?

The idea of self-sabotage assumes that you are making a conscious decision to defy something or someone that is intended to be for your benefit. It’s assuming that your client is “giving in” or not staying dedicated to the process. But knowing what I just taught you about why we make choices…do you still believe this to be true?

Self-sabotage is simply the point in which your clients willpower ran out. It’s a sign that the behaviour you’re trying to change brings them more pleasure and takes them away from more pain than the behaviour you’re trying to replace it with.

You’re assuming that they are making a conscious choice to “give up”, but the source of the problem is not found at the decision stage. The source of the problem is found at the belief stage – more specifically, the meaning they give to something that happened around them. Their brain is deciding for them if this is bringing them pain or pleasure based on their model of the world.

So if we use Becky as an example, let’s say that you gave her the goal to not eat fast food for 2 weeks. But you failed to uncover that when Becky was little, her mom would take her to  Burger King whenever Becky was upset about something (which was often, since Becky had a hard time making friends at school). To Becky, Burger King is linked up with feeling connected, loved, seen, and happy. So what happens when Becky has a hard day at work, or she has a fight with her husband, or she feels stressed about her VISA bill that just came in the mail…her past tendency would have been to go to Burger King. But now that that isn’t an option…how long do you think Becky will be able to last without an alternative behaviour that could give her an even more powerful shift towards pleasure (love, connection, significance and happiness) and away from pain (stress, sadness, fear, etc).

Probably not very long…probably less than a week if she really did have all of those underlying stressors going on in her life. So then when she “gives in” to her habitual patterns this causes her to falsely label herself as “self-sabotaging” and feels like a failure.

So then, if we know that Becky isn’t self-sabotaging…how do we help her change this behaviour? We’re going to talk about leverage next – how to find it, how to ethically use it (and basically how to become a jedi-master so you can help Becky change for good).

Finding (And Using) Leverage

So to recap, we know that changing our behaviours isn’t only about changing our decisions. It’s actually more about changing the source of our decisions – the underlying patterns that we have accumulated that guide the decisions we consistently make. Simply put, we need to figure out what is causing us to make these habitual choices in terms of :

  • What core needs is this choice fulfilling for us (even if negatively)
  • And what must we believe about ourselves or the world/others in order for this choice to fulfill this need?

In Becky’s case, going to Burger king when she is feeling stressed, angry or anxious is fulfilling the core needs of love, connection, significance and certainty. In order for this choice to fulfill this need Becky needs to believe that Burger King is going to give her the elevated state that she is seeking, that this is the best option for her to create the most pleasure and remove the most pain the fastest way possible, and that there are no other options available to her that could achieve the same result.

She doesn’t consciously think these things, obviously, she just habitually ends up in the Burger King drive thru and can’t explain her “lack of willpower” (which we will get into next).

So then to find leverage that you can use to help her change this habitual pattern is going to require you to find something else in Becky’s view of the world that could bring her the same (or more) pleasure and move her away from the same pain she is using Burger King to escape from

If you can do this, you have found an alternative – great work! But for this to truly become a new pattern that replaces her current one we must also help her associate Burger King with deep pain, instead of pleasure. THIS is called leverage. And where you look for this is inside of her primary needs. Important to note here is that you dont have to know everything about the core human needs, how people fulfill them, or the exact psychological processes that are going on with your client.

You simply need to begin looking for patterns – these are the strings that if pulled on will unravel the leverage you’re looking for.

Spotting Patterns

The patterns you’re looking for are going to be found using your most valuable skill as a coach. This is your innate ability to listen intently and hear not only the words they are saying, but also to develop the skill of unravelling the meaning behind these words (often before they have connected the dots themselves).

There are 4 “tells” that should trigger your spidey senses to pay closer attention…

  1. The first is emotion – this will most often be uncovered when the client feels like their current beliefs are beign challenged, or when change (or the suggestion of change) makes them feel uncomfortable. This can often be picked up in changes of tone of voice, speech patterns (ie: hesitation, bluntness, resistance, etc) and body language. If you are just learning to pay attention to signs of emotional changes, I suggest trying to do your calls over zoom so that you can pay attention to what you’re seeing as well as what you’re hearing.
  2. The second is adherence – if your client cannot “stick to” their plan, assume that there is a deeper reason why this is other than simply “a lack of willpower”. Ask questions that will lead them down the path of figuring out why this plan does not fit their needs or beliefs. Before changing the plan, consider that possibly the plan doesn’t need to change, in fact just their view of the world might need to be adjusted. 
  3. The third is lifestyle – always beginning your client’s journey with the end in mind is my biggest piece of advice I could give you. For example, if your client values her social life (in fact, she meets many of her core needs by being social in this way) removing social activities around food would require a great deal of willpower on her part (and would 100% be a temporary means to an end). Does she really need to give up her social life, or do we simply need to reframe which parts of this are actually giving her pleasure and meeting her needs? Perhaps she has incorrectly associated the food with pleasure, when in fact it’s simply just being around her friends that create the biggest pleasure source for her. 
  4. The fourth is language – the words your clients use are powerful keys that will unlock where there are strings you need to be pulling on. Are there specific scenarios that always shift them into negative language patterns? What are the words they consistently use to describe themselves, their progress, their life, etc? Often, people will use the same words consistently when they are unhappy about something – if you can pick up on the words they use consistently then you will have created a roadmap into their mind and often be able to predict their thoughts and behaviours before they are even aware of them.

As you have seen thus far, your clients actions are intricate, specific, predictable and most often completely subconscious. The way to create big change in someone is not simply to zoom in on their poor choices, but rather to have deep conversations about their life, why they believe they are making these choices, and from their perspective what they are positively getting from making the choices they are. Things like: how do they feel before and after their actions? What is their internal dialogue like before and after? What phrases do they commonly use when they feel bad about their behaviour? Why do they wish they could stop – what do they believe stopping this behaviour will give them?

By asking better questions, you create better roadmaps to true transformational change.

Why Most People Don’t Do This

Your clients likely blame their failed weight loss attempts on a handful of things: willpower, dedication, and motivation being the biggest ones you will undoubtedly hear them say. This is working under the assumption that the choices they are making are always conscious…that they are always in complete control.

If every choice you made required conscious effort you would never be able to operate in the world as you know it. Everything from simply standing up from your chair and walking across the room would require conscious thought. Our brain learns patterns we consistently use and pushes them into the parts of the brain that operate subconsciously.

If we can create a subconscious pattern for things like standing up to walk across the room, or opening a door, without having to think about how to do it, if we should do it, when to do it, why we’re doing it, etc…isn’t it possible that we can also create subconscious patterns for reactions to our external environmental triggers – like going to Burger King?

Of course it is. Behaviours are simply consistent actions we take in response to external stimuli based on what we perceive to bring us pleasure and move us away from pain. Knowing this, you can feel excited about the opportunities here to create massive change in someone’s life in ways they will perceive to be almost like magic. Behaviours that no diet has ever been able to “fix”, you can transform just by having conversations that will guide the plan you create for your client.

Ultimately the choice is yours, coach. You can develop the skills that could allow you to guarantee change in your clients lives…or you can continue to say a little prayer with every plan you put together hoping that this is the one that will make a difference for them. I challenge you to get uncomfortable and try some of these skills on for size – you’ll be surprised how natural it will feel to begin to coach in the way you always felt you should be.

By the way…if you want some serious doses of Laura wisdom to keep you on your toes and growing, I want you in my super dope group

Behind The Changeclick the link to join me!

 

You can also catch me on The Unfiltered Coach Podcast every Wednesday where the hubs and I are committed to helping you step into your power and build the biz of your dreams.

A Tell-All Guide To Knowing If Online Coaching Is Really Right For YOU

By Articles, Personal Growth & Expansion No Comments

It’s an average Tuesday night in the middle of winter & it’s dark outside already. You’re just wrapping up with your last client of the day, exhausted you sadly realize that never seeing the sunlight is becoming your new normal. Glancing at your dayplanner your inner voice starts beating you up before you even have the chance to put on your armour.

You did it again.

Your day has ended and you have only 1 of 16 things checked off your to-do list. Your heart sinks further when you realize that you have been rewriting the same items over and over again for the last 3 weeks when you first told yourself you were going to make a change.

That this year was going to be different. You were going to shift online and start to build your own business with your own schedule and your own rules.

“But how” you think to yourself “will I ever be able to make this work when I can’t even find the time to start a facebook group, or post on instagram, not to mention watch the 5 free webinars I signed up for last month on how to get this online business off the ground”

You tap into your email and realize you’re now getting bombarded from all of these different business coaches screaming at you in your inbox…”Want to make your first 10K online? Follow this one simple trick!”…”Learn how I sold 500,000 from my instagram stories in 3 months!”…

As you read the subject lines you angrily select all and delete…you feel your old resistance creep back in. The thoughts of “that will never be me”, “I don’t have time right now”, and “who do I think I am to try to do that”…enter your mind like a tsunami bringing you back to reality.

You know you want to try your hand at this online thing…but the kind of success you see others creating all around you feels impossible to reach…where do you even start, how will you ever find the time, what’s the point in trying when the only people who read your stuff is your mom and your favorite Auntie Sue…

All you know for certain is that you’re exhausted trying to keep up with your current in-person schedule.

You feel like you’re killing yourself every day for someone else’s dream. Like life is slowly passing you by and you are tired of missing out on dinner with friends, sunday brunch with your family, your nephews hockey games and just time to sit and do nothing.

You feel certain that growing an online business would grant you the freedom to reclaim your life, actually have the time (and funds) to travel to all of the exotic destinations you have passionately pinned to your vision board, and that if you could only just get started online that your world would take a 180 degree change for the better.

And while much of what you’re imagining can be your reality, what I want you to know and deeply understand is this:

  1. your happiness has absolutely nothing to do with your external circumstance. Shifting your business online to escape your current reality is only a short term solution to a much bigger underlying problem (and as you’ll see this was one of our BIGGEST reasons for shifting online…and ultimately one of our biggest lessons)
  2. You can 1000000% accomplish whatever lifestyle you want for yourself through growing an online business, but this requires you to actually know the life you want and then be okay with making the necessary sacrifices to achieve that end result
  3. Online business is hard AF and there are a lot of things you don’t know in the beginning that I want to illuminate for you so you can make the best, most informed decision possible

But before we dig into the top 10 things to consider before you shift online, I want to create some context for you around why you should pay attention to what it is I’m about to share with you. And the best way to do that I feel is to share my story…

Why We Took On 100K Of Debt To Shift Online

The alarm went off at 4:00am just like it did every morning, and my heart would sink. I would feel my grip tighten on the duvet as if to use it as a shield from the reality I had built. 

“Three, two, one” I would say in my head before I’d launch myself out into the darkness. Like a robot I’d get myself ready for a day full of clients…tossing my hair in a bun, no longer bothering with makeup.

“It surely won’t hide the bags under my eyes or the exhaustion in my body…so why bother”, I’d think.

I was so tired, my passion was gone, and I felt trapped in a life I created by accident. I was no where close to making the amount of money I needed to leave the gym and travel in the way I always dreamed I’d be able to do.

Even if money wasn’t an issue, there was no way I could leave my gym, my team or my clients for longer than a week or two without it all burning to the ground.

I had locked myself into a prison of my own design, and the only way out felt like an impossible option. But an option none-the-less.

It took us months to come to the decision…but in that moment of saying “I’m done, I don’t want a gym any longer” the relief we felt was so immense that I knew we were simultaneously taking the biggest risk of our lives and also freeing ourselves for everything that was waiting for us on the other side of that choice.

I began growing an online roster out of necessity…never in a million years would I have guessed how quickly I could replace (and exceed) the income we were making in the gym. In less than 6 months I was making more money personally than we ever had during our time there. I had cleared the infamous 10k/month mark and Landon was able to step away and shift online as well.

You can listen here for what I attribute my fast 6 figure success to, and how you can totally copy me (seriously, copy me) to create your own 6 figure success story.

Now, you can bet that this was a shortened version of the real story…inside of that transition was a fuck tonne of mistakes, tears, self-doubts, moments of wanting to run away to Bali (I actually planned my escape in a google doc), and loads of financial stress. We didn’t simply wake up to a 6 figure online coaching business…

What I built out of sheer necessity turned into the biggest professional gift of our lives.

It has allowed us the freedom to design our life exactly how we want it to be…right down to packing up everything we owned into a steel box and moving our butts down to beautiful Mexico (listen here for the tell all story on this!)

But freedom doesn’t come without sacrifice…and this was the biggest lesson of all. I truly don’t believe that every coach has what it takes to cut it online. I believe that some coaches are meant to work for others, some coaches are meant to work in person, and some coaches struggle to know the difference between their job and their unhappiness…and that if this is you…there is a lot more going on under the surface that is causing your burnout, dwindling passion and struggle to create the success you desire.

Nothing external is going to bring you what you truly want until you can create an internal environment that can support all of the beauty that the world around you can provide. Until you do that…everything else is just noise.

So before you shift online, consider the following top 10 lessons I learned inside of the hardest year of my life and how you can apply them to your big decision to shift online or not.

The Top 10 Things To Consider Before You Shift Online

Number 1: Technology becomes an essential part of your life

Something that scares a lot of people about running an online business is the thought of needing to marry their iPhone for the rest of their life. Ultimately, if you have zero intention of implementing additional technology into your workflow, the online world is going to be a really difficult one for you to grow in. 

The truth is that no one in the online space is above creating and posting valuable content online. No one is above dming their ideal clients to create engaging conversations. And no one is above using tech to communicate more effectively with their existing clients.

In fact, I would argue that if you’re not willing to do this to some degree, the online space is likely not for you. But before you write it off all together because of your bad relationship with tech, consider this…

One of the biggest mistakes coaches make is they have no boundaries, no content plan, no outreach training, and no idea how much time they should be spending on all of this stuff. It’s very easy to get swallowed up inside of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and all the rest thinking that you have to be everywhere all the time in order to “make it”.

When in fact if you instead focused on…

  1. Only the platforms you ideal client uses the most (Email and Facebook or Instagram is my initial suggestion)
  2. The content your ideal client needs to hear the most (instead of what you feel like posting that day)
  3. Creating as many conversations as possible with the singular intention of helping to solve one problem for everyone you talk to
  4. Creating boundaries around your social media time (adopt the “get in and get out” policy)
  5. Shifting your perspective from social media to business media and limiting your scrolling and engaging with people who will never buy from you
  6. Have a clear plan for your content creation, the types of content you’re creating, why this is best for your audience, and how to repurpose awesome pieces of content to expand your reach further with less effort or time investment.

…your anxiety around social media as an online entrepreneur would completely disappear and the momentum you would create from adhering to these guidelines would be exponential. Without a clear plan, objective, boundaries and message…social media feels like a mountain you can never summit and we burn out faster than we can say “instagram stories”…

When done correctly, incorporating more technology with your lead generation, your content creation, your daily operations and your client delivery can actually make your life easier, not more difficult…if you are willing to put the time into learning what works best for you.

Adopt these strategies and still hate being on your phone?? The online game is probably not for you, friend.

Number 2: Boundaries are essential

There is one resource in the world that is going to run out eventually. It’s something we’re all aware of (some more than others), but something happens as entrepreneurs where we seem to run out of it faster and faster the more we strive for our success.

Time.

We are all on this earth for an amount of time that we have no real control over. But how we spend that time, we have infinite control over. It’s very easy to lose sight of this, and very natural and normal to fall into the belief that we have no extra time or energy to give.

This can truly limit us in how successful we are really able to become…just think if at every turn your unconscious mind is screaming at you to “be careful with your time!” and “don’t burnout!”…the way you respond to opportunities and the way you manage your time is sabotaged without you even realizing it.

This is especially true for the virtual coach or the online entrepreneur. There are so many people and things pulling at your time and your energy constantly that maintaining enough for you to feel good day in and day out can become problematic.

The reason you feel tired all the time isn’t because you don’t have enough energy – you have infinite energy. And it isn’t because you don’t have enough time – you have the same amount of time as everyone else.

It’s because you aren’t holding space for yourself and you aren’t setting clear boundaries in order to do so.

The problem with this isn’t just that you won’t feel good inside of what you’re working so hard to create. It’s also that building your freedom life will end up taking you longer. Creativity, evolution and resilience are all very necessary parts of what will allow you to succeed online. However from a place of “never enough” you are unable to access those parts of you.

This leads to frustration when you have no idea what to write or say.

This leads to feelings of burnout when you are constantly giving more of yourself than you are replenishing.

This leads to feelings of failure, not being good enough, or not feeling ready to take on more.

This leads to your self-sabotage and a feeling of being plateaued inevitably.

We are living in a culture now where pushing and hustling is touted a admirable and something to strive for. Yet, the results from such actions have been shown to typically leave the hustlers less fulfilled, unable to rest, with limiting beliefs up the hoohaw that stop them from truly enjoying all that they have built around them.

To reach a place of inner and external freedom, boundaries must be put in place early on before self-destructive habits are formed (and you better believe I’m speaking from mega experience here). That being said, let’s start with a few easy questions to bring your awareness to places where you might need to firm up your boundaries:

  1. How do you currently start each day? How does that make you feel throughout the rest of the day? 
  2. How often do you check your social media or your email? How much unproductive time do you spend on these platforms?
  3. How accessible are you to people in your life?
  4. How do you end your day? How do you feel when you close your eyes at night
  5. Is your schedule planned or sporadic?
  6. Do you set time aside each week for yourself?
  7. What does it physically feel like when you feel “behind” in your day?
  8. Do you expect yourself to get done more than you have the bandwidth for? What happens if you don’t get everything done in the day that you expected?
  9. Who are you giving more energy away to than you should be? Are you seeking approval or justification through this?

Reclaiming your time and energy is a single choice…it is an awareness that you have the power to make this shift at any time. HOW you spend your time and energy is only for you to decide, yet until you reclaim that responsibility, the world is going to continue to push you around like a pinball stuck in a game of your own design. You can make it stop at any time, you just have to choose to stop feeding the game quarters.

Number 3: Your Success Is Completely Dependant On Your Mindset

Your mind is a sassy thing, always trying to keep you in one place just the way she likes you.

Challenge her, and your mind is armed with weapons stronger than any dynamite in the world ready to take down your thoughts of expansion – fear, limiting beliefs, self-doubt, comparison, self-judgement, overwhelm, anxiety, perfectionism, justification, proof…it’s all in there. Ready to show you why NOT to do something big and bold that will force you to grow.

Growth feels uncomfortable because when you consciously decide to push past those fears, limiting beliefs and feelings of overwhelm…you are required to shed those layers in order to move through them. You must face them in order to leave them behind you. This is why so many people stay stuck in one place…because they cannot come to terms with the discomfort. They would rather feel comfortable than extraordinary.

The life you’re dreaming of building…it isn’t going to be comfortable getting there. You’re going to be challenged in so many more ways than you can even imagine. But if you are willing to evolve your mindset as you grow your business, you will reach far greater heights than those who aren’t.

Let’s say a group of online coaches are all given the same tactics and strategies to implement. They all understand them equally and they all have a level playing field of reach, attention, status, connections and readiness. The only thing that creates a different experience for each person is found deep within themselves. It’s what they were taught about themselves and the world around them from a very young age…and how that frame of the world continues to show up in their life.

One person might doubt their ability to take action because they were told their whole life that they were lazy and stupid.

Another might fear failure because they watched their father lose his company when he was little and how that devastated their family.

While someone else might constantly feel overwhelmed by everything they have to do because the way they received affection from their parents was entirely dependent on how well they did in school, how much they contributed around the house and through other external accomplishments growing up.

As you can see, the events in your life have a massive impact on your ability to become successful. The truth, though, is that you have the power to change your conditioning. To adopt a mindset that does breed success and fulfillment.

The first step is awareness around where you’re holding yourself back.

The second step is exploring all the parts of you that are affected by this thought pattern, emotion, fear or belief.

The third step is learning to let that part of you go. Of choosing to believe a different story than the one you have been listening to all these years. Meditation, affirmations, boundaries, reflection and a conscious awareness of who/what triggers these past patterns is where everyone should begin their mindset journey.

Number 4: You’ll Need To Disconnect From Your Environment

This is a really challenging hurdle for a lot of new online entrepreneurs. Previous to shifting online likely your schedule was set for you, there were expectations of where you would be a when you would be there, and the environment you were in was someone stable – controlled even.

The instability of being able to completely control your schedule and your work environment is both freeing and problematic. A lot of type A entrepreneurs struggle with the working-from-home situation because of this instability and unpredictability. The shift from rigidity to complete flexibility is difficult to internalize and many get caught up worrying about what’s going on around them in their subconscious search for normalcy or stability.

Disconnecting from your environment suggests creating boundaries around your physical space so that when you’re working on your business and with your clients you will not feel pulled in multiple directions. You can focus and be productive. So if you work from home, for example, create an area where you are meant to work that is removed or disconnected from your personal life. The last thing you want is to be in the middle of writing a piece of content, and get sidetracked by laundry, the dog, or the mess in the kitchen your kids neglected to clean up.

Holding physical and mental space for your business tasks will transform how you feel inside of what you are able to accomplish each day, all else being equal.

You know how they say to improve your sleep don’t keep a tv in the bedroom? Well to improve your productivity don’t keep your personal life in your work space.

The reason I bring this up here is because a lot of people aren’t even going to realize this is an issue until they feel overwhelmed with everything they need to get done in a day – not even seeing that most of what they “need to get done” has nothing to do with their online business at all.

Number 5: People Won’t Get It

Listen, anyone born before 1985 is going to seriously struggle to understand how in the hell you’re able to make money “without working”. Your dad is going to pressure you to get a “real job” and your mom is going to constantly be your reminder to “be careful with your money”. Essentially everyone who is close to you is going to worry that you’re living off of tuna and ramen and just not telling anyone. Even when you’ve “made it”.

The online world is just so different from their frame of what success looks like. To them, success means working your way up the corporate ladder, getting promotions, and landing a gig where you get 6 weeks paid vacation. You know there is a whole other world out there, but my advice to you is to not waste your energy trying to convince them with your words.

Show them with your actions instead.

You must understand that just because online entrepreneurship is all around YOU, it’s not common knowledge for everyone. If someone cannot comprehend it, their doubt in your ability to be successful (and people will doubt you) has more to do with their care for you combined with the frame they see the world through.

Be careful who you ask for advice from where your online business is concerned. Ultimately in the early stages we have a lot of doubts ourselves about our ability to succeed. Logically we know we CAN, but internally there are other wars going on around “am I good enough yet?”, “what will people think?”, “is this really possible for me?”…that when we ask the wrong people to justify our choices, these inner wars are reinforced instead of dismantled.

I recommend finding a community or mentor that lives in the same world as you to direct all questions, doubts and fears towards. This way, you will be met with relevant guidance that doesn’t reinforce your already raging inner wars, but rather guides you through the discomfort towards overcoming the enemy (yourself).

Protecting yourself from negative, uninformed inputs is extremely important in the beginning, or you risk stopping yourself before you even get started. You risk falling back into the comfort of the predictable and stable because “that makes more sense” instead of pushing forward into your life of freedom that is right there waiting for you to reach out with a brave hand to take it.

Number 6: Freedom Comes With A PriceTag

What does freedom look like to you?

What does it feel like to you?

How will you know you’ve actually reached it?

Picture yourself shopping at the highest end designer store for a dress. You find one you fall in love with, its long and flowy completely covered in crystals and beads. You know it will fit you perfectly, it will emphasize every sexy curve and will make your ass look incredible. You know you need to have it, but you have no idea how much it costs. You just spotted it in the window and you imagined how it would make you feel, how you will look in it and how it will change your perspective of yourself. You’ll feel powerful, unstoppable, important, worthy, and happy.

This is kinda like freedom.

We have an idea of what it’s going to look and feel like…but we don’t think about the price-tag attached to it. We just know that no matter what its something we need to have.

So my question to you is, when you realize the price tag for that dress is 1 Million dollars, do you drop your dream and walk away, or do you plan for how you’re going to get it one day?

I know a dress and your LIFE aren’t exactly the same thing, but what I’m trying to get across is that the price-tag for freedom is this…

  • Opening old wounds and growing through them…this is painful and scary but completely necessary to step into the version of yourself that is able to hold and keep the amount of success you dream of having
  • Giving up time in other important areas of your life…the path to freedom is rocky and difficult. You will need to sacrifice many things in order to get there, the most of which being your time and energy. Dream of working a 3 hour day? You can make it happen but it will likely require many 13 hour days before you earn that lifestyle.
  • If you aren’t happy right now where you are in your current life, more money and more choice will only amplify that which you already are. 
  • Mistakes and failures pave the way to freedom…no one in history ever achieved anything great without them. Are you willing to fail (and I mean hit-rock-bottom-fail) and pick yourself back up and keep going? Do you have an unwavering belief in yourself?
  • Are you willing to accept that your version of freedom and what is actually going to unfold for you may not be the same thing? Will you be flexible in how your life and business evolve together? 

Success without happiness is the ultimate form of failure. So how you define freedom and what you actually achieve is going to heavily depend on your ability to first create internal freedom. Freedom from fears, doubts, stress and worry. Freedom from expectations and perfectionism. So you can truly enjoy your life and how you spend your time each and every day, without clinging to your business with a deathgrip waiting for the day you can finally let go. Freedom doesn’t work that way. You must find joy and happiness inside of all of it – the failures just as much as the setbacks – if true freedom is what you seek. Here’s how you start:

  1. Disassociate your happiness from the outcomes of your business. Clearly define why you are shifting online, how that will impact the world, and how it will impact your life. Cling to that vision over the outcomes.
  2. Define how freedom will feel for you and check in on yourself daily on how you can insert little pieces of that same feeling into your life right now. By waiting to “make it” until you achieve something external you are simply holding freedom hostage and what you achieve will never be enough of a ransom to let it out.
  3. Commit to celebrating every single day.
  4. Define what is truly important to you and how success is going to amplify that which you already love. Success isn’t magic – it just gives you more of what you’re already attracting to you. So what do you want to start attracting now so that it can become amplified? Better relationships? More time? Adventure? How can you start finding those things in small ways NOW before achievement?

Number 7: You CAN Make A Lot Of $$$, But Most People Don’t Ever Become Truly Wealthy

You are already in the 1% of people on this entire planet who have taken the risk to start their own business online. Our world might feel saturated, but truth be told the online coaching space is only just beginning and is actually quite small relative to what it’s going to grow to become in the next few years.

The real question is not whether you’re going to live in the 1%…but if you’re going to thrive in the 1% of the 1%?

What do I mean here…

Well…a lot of people start an online business. But not a lot of people make a lot of money doing it. And those who DO make a lot of money, have also lost just as much money figuring out how to “make it”.

They either made a tonne of money and then realized they still weren’t happy.

Or they struggled for a long time, failing a lot, before they came out on the other side.

Are you willing to do what it takes to get into the 1% of the 1%?

I’m not talking about how much money you deposit in your bank account every month. What I’m talking about extends far beyond monetary wealth and flows over into mental, emotional, and freedom-based wealth (time and choice).

That kind of wealth is far more difficult to build, will require a great deal of sacrifice to truly find, and will absolutely, no questions asked, require you to go into the depths of YOU and heal the past traumas, beliefs, and limitations you are currently living inside of.

Your world, as you see it now, is not the same world you will be living in when you “make it” to this ever abundant place. Your current perceptions of the world around you have been crafted by YOUR mind to hold you inside of a box.

In this box with you are none of the skills, beliefs or values you must learn to adopt in order to step out of the box and into the 1% of the 1%.

What you DO hold inside of your box are all of the tools you need to break the walls of that box down and expose yourself to an entirely new perspective of the world.

You see, true wealth really has nothing to do with pushing harder, hustling faster or doing more. The real challenge is realizing that you are already enough and that your fears, worries and anxieties are nothing more than a false reality your mind is creating to keep you from breaking down the walls of your box. If you believe your aren’t good enough, ready or smart enough to survive in the world “out there” you wouldn’t dare break those walls down.

And so that’s the story your mind presents to you.

Along with a whole mess of stuff to prove to you that it’s right.

So your journey into the 1% of the 1% starts with breaking the walls of your box.

And that starts with noticing.

Noticing when you are telling yourself stories that are holding you back from doing the things you know you should be (and want to be) to get ahead and grow.

Noticing when you feel afraid, anxious or worried about something or someone.

Noticing when you feel overwhelmed. When you stop yourself before you start. When you fall into victim mode, perfectionism and imposter-syndrome (which really, all feel super similar).

Are you willing to take the time to notice?

Because simply by noticing, you are starting to pick up the tools in your box, and overtime you will begin to swing at those walls. Until they are all on the floor around you and you can see what you were missing out on all this time.

A world of opportunity that is ready to flow to you.

You never had to push harder or work more. You just had to stop blocking what was trying to come to you.

This is how you achieve mental wealth, emotional wealth, freedom and lifestyle wealth and monetary wealth. While feeling aligned and doing what you love. 

Can you achieve monetary wealth without this step? Yes. Many do.

But without exploring deeper within yourself, you will never truly know anything beyond that. 

Money won’t give you what you want it to. And you will stay stuck on a hamster wheel of filling voids and reaching for more external fixes for your internal problems.

Number 8: Up-levelling Your Focus & Prioritization

Learning how to focus and prioritize in the early stages is like telling a 5 year old standing in a candy store to choose just ONE candy. Picture yourself as that 5 year old for a minute…

You can’t think logically, your mouths are watering at the sight of every chocolate, sour gummy bear and peach penguin they see.

It takes you hours to decide on just one because what if you choose wrong? What if you miss out? What if you choose the sour gummy bear but the peach penguin was actually better?

And then your friend walks in, heads straight for the jawbreakers, pays and walks out.

So you also choose the jawbreaker because, well, he did it with such confidence. Such conviction. It MUST be the best candy in the store.

But you forget that you don’t even like jawbreakers. Your favorite candies are sour and chewy. Not sweet and hard.

You suck on it for as long as you can, all the while walking around the store dreaming of the sour, chewy candies you COULD be enjoying instead right now.

You feel stuck with this jawbreaker, trapped by it’s never ending layers. But so confused and overwhelmed by what you should have done. If you could spit out the jaw breaker and pick something else you would – but WHAT? So you do nothing.

You just stand there, overwhelmed by all the choices, sucking on your lame jawbreaker hoping that you will “figure it all out” one day soon. Until then, you’ll just do what you see everyone else doing. Sucking on jawbreakers.

Here’s what happens…when we’re presented with too many ideas, options, or opinions we can’t process the link between where we currently are and what will get us successfully to where we want to be.

So we just haphazardly insert strategies we see other people doing. Even though we have no idea why, or how, we just blindly follow what we see and hear other people like us doing.

The problem with this, is that a lot of the time we insert really great strategies at the completely wrong times. We don’t consider where we are at, and what is going to be the lowest hanging fruit for us to help us move forward the fastest. We just think “as long as I’m doing something, it’s better than standing still”.

We hop from strategy to strategy, just like each layer of the jawbreaker you were sucking on, hoping that next strategy will be the one that “sticks” but just like the one before it, slowly it dissolves and you’re on to the next.

Focusing on the right strategy at the right time and prioritizing with confidence this above all the other candies in the store is what is going to give you the opportunity to get ahead, to move your needle, and to really build a skill that is essential to online growth.

The ability to put blinders on and focus on what YOU need to worry about right now, not what everyone else is doing…and without worrying about missing out on something “better”.

This whole journey is about you learning what works and what doesnt work for you.

Here’s a little secret. Every single strategy out there can work. Whether it works or not just depends on your readiness to implement, your personality, your business model, your level of focus, and your definition of “works”…

Just like every candy in the candy story is delicious to someone – even the gummy hamburgers or fake bloody fingers. They’re in the store for a reason – someone inevitably walks in and buys them eventually.

So which candy are you going to enjoy for the next 1-3 months? Decide on that, put your blinders on, and give yourself time and space to learn and grow. Without this level of focus, you will never know how to get where you’re going because you will always be distracted by all other options with the illusion that they might work better.

Number 9: Connection + Communication Is A Brand New Skill

For many of you who have never known a day in your life without the internet, the iPhone, or the countless apps we use to connect and communicate every single day, this might come as a shock. Connecting online through the lens of growing your business is completely different than what connection looked like when all you cared about was how many people “liked” the cute picture you took when you were out with your girlfriends last Saturday night.

You cannot simply toss up photos of yourself and expect a flock of raving fans to throw their credit cards at you ready to buy whatever it is that you’re selling. Connecting online is a skill, and a priceless one at that.

Ultimate the key to being a great communicator comes down to three simple things:

  1. Have The Balls To Go First – just like any good relationship, you must be willing to put yourself out there if you’re ever going to get it off the ground. In this relationship, you are the one who is going to have to take the first scary step and initiate. By simply waiting for your raving fan base to find you, you’re putting yourself in a very dismal position where the chances of them finding you, liking you and trusting you becomes 0.00001%. If you want to shift those odds in your favor, start doing some thinking about where they are hanging out online, and how you can place yourself in front of them through conversation.
    1. Initiate a conversation from a genuine place (in other words, if you don’t actually think their baby is cute, probably don’t comment on that part of their life)
    2. If you wouldnt reply to you, don’t send the message (this rule pretty much rules out every chance you had at coming off as slimy or salesy)
    3. Try to discover how you can provide them value, NOT how you can craft the perfect conversation to sell them. If you lead with this intention, you will grow a much more loyal following
    4. No one is above conversation – not even the billion dollar man. 
  1.  Appreciate Your Followers – stop trying to collect followers like wildflowers and actually show them appreciation. Time is the only resource in this entire world that is non-replenishable. And they are spending some of their time on you. Do you get how incredible that is? They care about what you have to say. They look up to you. They want what you’re throwing down.

Start reaching out to them more often to start conversations. Not to sell, but to show them love right back. Relationships are about give and take – and you better believe that you are in a brand new relationship with each and every one of the people following you. If your followers feel ignored by you, do you think they are going to ever warm up to actually buy from you? Hell no. If you had 100 loyal fans who bought every single thing that you put out, you would be in an incredibly profitable place. But we all get so caught up in appearances that we think we need 100 000 followers in order to look and feel successful.

We tell ourselves that no one will take us seriously because of what our follower count says about our authority. Let me tell you, I built my first 6 figure business off of less than 1500 followers, and I did it because of this one single x-factor. Connection. 

  1.  Be A Good Person – help where you can, lead with a giving hand, never make someone feel badly about not wanting to buy from you and understand what it is you’re actually trying to accomplish in this world. Spend some time each day to reflect on this and your entire business will transform. This, I promise you.

Those who act selfishly, who have no meaningful driving force behind their business, and who are simply only willing to communicate with those who are going to give them something in return will always struggle in life. Don’t become blind to the real reason you became a coach in the first place – it wasn’t to “look” like an authority. It was to actually be an authority to a select few whose lives you could change forever. Never lose sight of this.

You don’t need to take a course on how to talk to people, you just need to rehumanize yourself. We spend so much time behind the safety net of our screen that we forget how to use our emotions to connect. We forget that true connection requires an investment of time and energy to be lasting and meaningful. We cannot hack great connections by using bots or software to grow our following for us. We must be willing to invest time and energy first into the people whom we want to invest time and energy back into us.

Money is energy.

Number 10: There Is No Playbook

When we decide to become an online entrepreneur, we deep down kind of expect it to be easy at first. There’s so many people doing it that there must be a formula that they all follow to reach the success that they have been able to attain for themselves.

There is no formula. There is no playbook. There are no rules. There is no guarantee.

The online world is ever changing. What is relevant today will be obsolete tomorrow. This is both the beauty and the frustration of growing an online business. You must learn to fall in love with the game.

If you are to truly thrive in the online space, it’s going to require you to be willing to do things many are not.

  • Iterate your program 17 times before you create a version that people actually want
  • Post 13489034 times before anyone starts to notice who you are
  • Spend as much time working on yourself as you do your business
  • Listen to 20 “no’s” for every “yes”
  • Say “no” to every shiny object that isn’t your primary focus right now
  • Believe in yourself and your mission more than anyone else
  • Have hard days and keep going anyways
  • Have incredible days and not let it get to your head
  • Do things you dislike until you get to a place where you can outsource them

With your online business, you have the power to build any kind of life you want for yourself. My hope for you is that you know what kind of life that is before you start, that you are clear about why it is you’re chasing what you’re chasing, and that you never lose sight of this. And my gut feeling is that if you made it to the end of this blog article, not only do you have what it takes, but you are committed to becoming the best possible online coach you can be for your clients and for yourself. I celebrate you, and I’m excited for you.

One last thing I know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that what that holds us all back from taking messy action boils down to three main things – mentorship, your mindset, and a clear, easy to follow method. I want to invite you to check out my Free 3 Day Momentum Challenge where we’ll dive deeper into each of these AND give away our secret sauce to landing your next 5-10 online clients super quick. See you in there!

I want to invite you to check out my Free 3 Day Momentum Challenge where we’ll dive deeper into each of these AND give away our secret sauce to landing your next 5-10 online clients super quick. See you in there!
Check it out now!

I love helping coaches confidently get started online so we can build freedom into their life. The biggest thing that stops us has nothing to do with our ability as a coach and everything to do with what we believe about ourselves and what is possible for us. That’s what I love – showing people the path out of their own damn way.

If you’d like to connect with me more, I host a free Facebook Community called Online Coaches Building Momentum – we’d love to have you! And if you don’t know me well yet, go check out my podcast, The Unfiltered Coach that I co-host with the husbie every Wednesday!

… if you have any questions, hit reply. It might take a little while, but I respond to every email, personally…

Finally… if you’d like to see if we can work together… take a look here for details on that

The Easiest Way To Instantly Become A Better Nutrition Coach

By Articles, Personal Growth & Expansion No Comments

“I didn’t lose weight again this week…”

The seven words every coach hates to hear rang through my phone as Cindy’s text popped up on my screen Saturday morning.

I was supposed to have my phone off, taking the weekend to “be present” I think is what my husband called it. But this was an emergency! If I didn’t text her back by Monday morning she would surely fire me…

So I snuck off to the bathroom and pretended to be, well, ya know…but really my fingers were flying in a fury texting Cindy back everything I could think of to encourage her, console her and keep her happy…with me.

Cindy texted me every time she felt like she was going to lose control around food…and I didn’t know it at the time but I would jump to her defense in an instant because I really didn’t know what else to do to get her to stop this negative behaviour.

^^Me texting Cindy back all day like…

Don’t you agree that there are so many times when our clients don’t “fit” the case studies we were given as client examples to get our certification? It all seemed so easy when we first learned to do x+y with our clients and it should equal z. The fancy formulas and research papers they referenced felt bulletproof. No one was above science – they taught us. But the reality is that human behaviour (nevermind actually changing human behaviour) doesn’t happen in black and white. What are you supposed to do when your clients struggle to adhere to y and can never quite seem to reach the z?

Your Clients Aren’t Robots

In order to go beyond science and pull the curtain back on how change actually goes down, we need to dissociate your clients from the science. You’re making wild accusations, even if subconsciously, that are reinforcing your hardwiring as an “evidence based coach”. Things like “I’m missing something” or “she’s self-sabotaging again, maybe I’m not feeding her enough” are examples of this in action. But your clients are not robots, human behaviour doesn’t change just because the textbook you studied says that their physical body should be.

Logic actually has very little to do with your client’s ability to change for good. In order for a person to make a behaviour change at all, emotion must become a part of that equation. Even a client who does everything you say and consistently progresses every single week has a deep underlying emotion governing their behaviour –  they receive a deep reward from pleasing you, from achievement and from being your star client.

There are literally thousands of emotions that your clients could be using to reinforce their old behaviours (or their new ones)…so how do we even begin to figure this out?

The only thing you need to understand is that every human behaviour is formed by an emotion. And that emotion is a result of fulfilling a basic human need, of which there are six. We will focus on the four that are most relevant to a weight loss client:

  • Certainty (as seen in someone who can stick to a meal plan but struggles with the concept of intuitive eating)
  • Uncertainty (as seen in someone who cannot meal prep because they get bored and need variety in their life)
  • Significance (as seen in someone who wants to stand out, be seen and heard, and uses their poor relationship with food and body image to do that)
  • Love & Connection (as seen in someone who’s food choices often mirror the social circles they are a part of)

Humans will seek to fulfill their needs by whatever means possible – this means that if your client’s predominant need is certainty – you will likely see perfectionism patterns, over-reactions when they make a mistake, and a strong need to have data to support what they are doing. If you can identify which need your client’s negative behaviour pattern is controlling their current behaviour, you now have the key to unlock how you are going to help them change for good.

Your Role Is Changing

Before you can identify these needs and understand how to effectively recognize the emotions that are causing the behaviours you see happening in your clients (a process that requires a great deal of intuition, trust and strategy on your part) you must first be willing to look in the mirror and evaluate where you still have growth left to do. I know you’re a great coach already, but in order to create this deeper change in someone else, we must first be able to move ourselves through it.

There are certain behaviours I see many coaches fall into simply because they don’t feel completely confident in their ability to create change in someone else. You’ve probably had moments where you suspect a client needs more from you. You may have even prescribed “mindset work” to them (things like journalling, meditation, intention setting). But when those things didn’t work, how did you respond?

Often times we get defensive and feel the need to prove that we are right, we make ourselves “too” available in a subconscious attempt to fill any value voids our clients feel from their struggles, or we simply undercharge because we are uncertain in ourselves.

 Take a moment to recognize in yourself any of the following:

  • The need to reply to your clients instantly when they text or email you
  • Writing novels back to your clients basic questions
  • Giving your clients access to you 24-7 (even though you tell them you aren’t available you still reply)
  • Spending hours doing things for your clients that you would rather not be doing, but you are afraid to upset them (like researching hundreds of recipes)
  • Getting nervous when a clients renewal is coming up, unsure if they will continue

How you respond to your clients when they struggle says everything about the work you still have to do yourself as a coach. There are likely 2 main needs that your actions and responses are shaped around – the need to feel certain that you know what you’re doing, and the need to feel significant in the journey your clients are on.

But does this type of behaviour serve you and the coach that you want to be?

Before you can lead your clients through deep change, you must be able to step behind your reactions and understand that this type of change requires you to trust yourself and release the need to prove anything to your clients. You cannot lead from a place of need.

To begin this shift, can you think of a time where you felt entirely unstoppable? The next time you catch yourself inside of these behaviour patterns I want you to stop yourself, bring awareness to what’s happening, move your body (jump up and down, snap your fingers, anything to change your physiology) and picture that unstoppable version of you. 

Hey, it’s not for everyone. But I would much rather feel so confident in my ability as a coach that I never feel the need to “prove it” to anyone, rather than always getting an anxious pit in my stomach when a client texts me a simple question about their plan.

You getting empowered af ^^

Rapport & Pre-Framing

“But, Laura, even if I wanted to help them in this way, I’m not a psychologist. I don’t know what questions to ask…”

It’s normal for your mind to come up with evidence to support your choice to stay the same. Your brain doesn’t want you to change, but the reality is that for you to become a master of change, you need to be willing to explore new parts of your natural skillset. We all have these abilities inside of us, but they require a great deal of vulnerability to uncover them.

Just as uncomfortable as you feel in asking the questions that will unlock the truth in your clients behaviour, so too your clients feel being on the receiving end of these questions. But there is a way to make this process run a little more smoothly, and can be done with any client, even one you are already in the process of working with.

Before you’re going to be able to evoke emotion in someone else effectively you must develop a certain level of rapport with them. In other words, they need to feel safe to expose their deepest vulnerabilities with you. Could you imagine your dentist asking you to describe what it feels like when you lose control around food? No, you would look at him like he was crazy. But that’s what your clients will feel like, too, if you don’t take the time first to establish rapport on this level.

don’t be awkward

Begin to do this by exploring with them the idea that your plan thus far hasn’t been as effective as either of you would like, and perhaps this means there is something a little deeper going on. Getting them to agree with you here opens the door to simply ask questions like:

  • Would it be okay if we talked more about that?
  • How would you feel if we started to explore how we can change the root of the problem instead of trying to just stick bandaids on you that eventually fall off?
  • Help me understand from your perspective why it is you think it’s hard to stay consistent?
  • Would it be okay if we spoke about other areas of your life that could be playing a role here?

By asking permission, you are pre-framing them for the deeper conversation you’re about to have. You’re also establishing yourself as an expert in a new way by owning the lack of success, taking the burden off their shoulders, and bringing them onto your team.  The key is for them to never feel as though you are making assumptions about their life, and to show them that it’s normal for plans to need to evolve over time – this isn’t their fault and it isn’t a failure. It’s just a redirection.

The truth is that all you know is that there is a basic need that is being filled by an emotional reaction causing a specific behaviour. By asking better questions you can slowly begin to understand what that formula is for your client and help them to understand their pattern as well.

Asking Hard Questions

The biggest mistake that most coaches make inside of how they go about creating change in someone else’s life is that they wait too long to ask the hard questions. They wait until the client trusts them enough to offer up some golden nugget that changes the course of their plan. They wait until they feel like they have enough trust in their client to start to poke around under the surface. But by waiting too long, they risk losing the client before they’re really able to effect change. They risk becoming disempowered when a client faces failure too many times before you get to the real, underlying thread of pain by which you are able to begin the change process. Usually waiting to ask hard questions comes down to a combination of three things…

  • You don’t know what to ask
  • You don’t know how to ask
  • You don’t know if you should ask

So here’s a really simple formula for you to follow to begin the process of peeling back the layers you have been waiting to peel themselves…

The direction a person’s life is going is the result of the actions they take repeatedly.

The actions they repeatedly take are dictated by decisions they make.

The decisions (conscious or subconscious) they make are determined by how they view that specific situation as it relates to what they have linked up to bring them pain or pleasure.

For example, a client is not self-sabotaging when they eat ice cream every night instead of the apple you recommended to them. They simply have linked up that at night when they feel lonely they eat ice cream to fill the void – this moves them away from pain and towards pleasure. Ice cream isn’t what is causing pain…being lonely is causing pain…which is ultimately causing them to eat ice cream repeatedly which is causing them to gain weight taking their life a direction they don’t want it to go.

Begin the process of asking better questions by starting with the external direction and guiding them down the process of uncovering the pain or pleasure source this is rooted in. Keep in mind that the linkage they have made will not always make sense to you, but there is meaning there to them and it’s your job to figure out what that is so that you can evoke change at the source.

Questions like these are good places to start:

  • Help me understand why you believe that _____ is the cause of your pain?
  • Why do you believe that losing weight will make you feel ______?
  • What would need to change in your life for this to happen?
  • Can you remember a time when you didn’t feel this way?
  • Does eating _____ bring you pain? [“No”] So then what do you think is the thing that is really causing you pain in those moments?

Fear of Failing

Many coaches fear failing their clients more than they fear just about anything else – they worry about giving them bad advice, losing their trust, not getting them the physical outcomes they hired them for, or ultimately harming them emotionally or mentally. So then, I ask you this – why would that be painful for you?

Remember what I said earlier about moving away from pain or towards pleasure in every decision we make? The decision you make to not initiate these conversations with your clients moves you away from pain in some way. Often, coaches become coaches most often because we have overcome some large emotional event in our lives and we now feel pulled to help others overcome challenges in theirs.

If you think back to the moments in your life that set you on the course you’re now on as a coach, can you pick out 2-3 major emotional events that you overcame that brought you here? Perhaps you struggled with your own weight loss journey, or maybe you watched your mom struggle with an eating disorder when you were young. Maybe it had nothing to do with nutrition, and you just felt compelled to become a successful entrepreneur to earn the love of your parents.

Whatever that was for you…likely there was severe pain associated with that event, and moving away from it took a great deal of work. Now, faced with a client who you witness struggling with similar emotions, it can be rather difficult for you to engage them because you fear amplifying their pain or triggering your own. 

The reality is that if you didn’t associate those emotions with pain, you wouldn’t think twice about asking them about what they were feeling, why they behaved a certain way, what has happened in their life that has caused them a great deal of pain, and the real reason they want to change their body? It would feel as normal as asking them what they ate for breakfast yesterday morning.

So if you fear the outcomes of these questions, it’s important to first look in the mirror and ask yourself why this could be? What inside of you is blocking your courage to become the leader your clients need you to become?

My Origin Story: The Client That Changed Everything

I believe that if you have an innate desire to help others change their life, that there is something very special about you. Something that you, uniquely have that sets you apart from everyone else in the world. That you have a natural ability to see in others the possibility that they struggle to see themselves. And that often times you don’t even realize this to be true.

This is exactly how it happened for me, and likely how it has already happened for you, too. I remember Brenda’s face like I still see her weekly. I was a freshly certified, green personal trainer working at an uppity private studio. Brenda, a wealthy woman who always wore one quarter-sized diamond ring on each hand (no exaggeration, she didn’t even take them off to lift weights) and funky glasses, was a 60-something woman who desperately wanted to distract the world from her true self. But I saw her deeply. I connected with her instantly. And she trusted me without fault. I reserved all my emotional energy for Brenda every day, knowing that what she would divulge to me would test my ability to hold firm my boundaries – back when I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing.

Brenda was the first client I started developing these natural born skills with. I had gut instincts with Brenda, I asked her difficult questions that  no one else had the balls to ask her…and I helped her realize the root of her lifelong relationship with food was rooted in abuse and the desire to hide her soul under her body and everything she wore on top of it.

For the first time in her life, someone saw her. Me. And my willingness to trust myself enough to follow my instincts allowed me to change her life forever. I still have the card Brenda wrote me when I left that studio where she called me her “Angel”…

There is truly nothing more powerful than knowing you had a hand in changing another’s life beyond their weight or the food they eat. When you give someone the gift of being seen and accepted for who they truly are you have the power to set their life in a completely different direction just through your compassion and willingness to listen. 

Your mission: begin this process by looking at yourself first. You cannot become the leader you want if you fail to move through these steps in your own life first. What you’ll discover, if you have the courage to move past what is holding you back, is the ability to initiate change in another deeper than anyone else because you will have unlocked your unique gift and used it for the first time.

To become the one Behind The Change, join my private facebook group where you’ll have access to LIVE training’s, daily inspiration, a community of badasses (I’m supa picky about who’s in this circle), and of course doses of Laura wisdom to keep ya on your toes and growing.

Thanks for being here friend! Can’t wait to pull the sparkle out of you.

XOXO

Laura