How to Be a Better Coach with Rachel Duffy

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 181. Today we're sitting down with parenting coach Rachel Duffy to talk all about how to be a better coach even if you're not a parent. This episode is going to transform your life. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up, coach? I actually gave my intro inside of the episode, so I'll go ahead and roll this episode immediately. I just want you to realize if you are pushing play for the first time and wondering, wait, I'm not a parent, will this pertain to me? It absolutely will because expert parenting coach Rachel Duffy happens to be my coach. We talk in this episode all about how the importance of relationship building, an effective communication components are essential to growing any profitable business and how coaching is very similar when you are also raising a family. But truly, it's about effective communication and building relationships. Rachel's going to give you her full intro inside of this episode. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of PT Profit Podcast. I'm super pumped that you're here and I am bringing to you one of my coaches and not in the business world. It's going to be such a transformational experience. When you say till the end for a couple of reasons. But number one is just so important to know that every coach needs coaches and two, it is important to live your life without being essentially compartmentalized that everything influences everything and how you show up in one area of your life is likely showing up in other areas, which is what we're going to be diving into today. I have brought to you one of my dearest friends and my coach, Rachel Duffy, who actually helps me with build by resilience with my children and build really profound relationships with kids. She helps me with my own parenting journey and it has had a profound effect on how I show up as a coach and business owner, which is why I brought her here today to share with you a little bit of stuff that she shares with me so that we all can upgrade our coaching abilities. So, Rachel, thank you so much. For hanging out with me today. Can you please share with everyone a little bit more about who you are, who you serve, and how you got there?

Thank you so much for having me, Bev. It's always an honor to share space with you, and especially because I know that I know you and I know that your listeners are super smart, capable people, people who might identify as high achievers and high performers. I know that's certainly true about myself. And I began my career from that place of being a super high achiever, high performer. I was a divorce attorney for many years, a litigator and a mediator. And I transitioned out of that corporate job, which I was making a ton of money hand over fist very easily. But I wasn't fulfilled. It wasn't the way in which I wanted to truly support families, because for me, the relationship between parents and children has always been something I was attracted to, wanting to support, wanting to understand because of my own childhood as well. But being a litigator didn't really allow me to support families in the way that I truly wanted to. So I became a parenting coach. I got certified by Dr. Shefali. I became a conscious parenting coach. And one of the reasons that, or what brought me there was when I had my own children. This is 10 years ago, 10 plus years ago. And what I quickly found out was that all my amazing skills, my intellect, my education, my experience, my ability to be super organized and detail oriented, all of that flew out the window. It was not only was it not helping me with my family, it was actually holding me back. And I had to take a real honest look at myself and say, hang on, something is wrong here. Something doesn't make sense. How is it that I can be so super successful in some areas of my life and then not be able to not have those skills translate into my personal life? And I felt, honestly, I felt like my children at even in their infancy were already bringing me to my knees. And I just didn't know what to do with that. I couldn't. Couldn't handle it. I couldn't accept that I was failing. I was really, really lost. And going through Dr. Shefali's trainings was the first thing that kind of opened my eyes and made me see things in a different way. And the deeper I dove into that, and then I also incorporated lots of trauma healing modalities, and I really dug deep into understanding child development, human psychology, what is trauma, how to heal it, what to do beyond talk therapy. And I combined all of that alongside the skills I have from the days of being a litigator and from the days of being a mediator. And I put it all together to work with parents. And this is who I support today. I support parents and adults wanting to change and improve the relationships inside their families.

So good and so powerful. And truly, if you're listening to this episode right now and you're thinking to yourself, I'm not a parent. This doesn't pertain to me. I want you to consider and invite you to continue to listen for a couple of reasons, because what we're going to unpack in today's episode is, is how you can use these skills and based on the questions that I'll ask in your client relationship as a coach. Because what Rachel is amazing at is her ability to communicate effectively to other people in relationships as you as a client or you as a. Or have relationships with your clients. So this is going to help you connect on a deeper level, whether you have kids or not. So in that vein, Rachel, would you share with us a little bit about what are some of the common traps, behavior misconceptions that you continue to see parents and adults operate from in their. In their relationships with people?

Absolutely. I think what happens for many of us inside of our families, we find ourselves getting upset over similar things with the same people. In other words, there's. Regardless of whether or not you're a parent, there's likely someone in your family. Maybe it's your parents who triggers you, someone who kind of gets under your skin every time you see them. And when you start to peel back what really is happening beneath the surface of that relationship, you start to realize there are patterns, behavioral patterns and reactions being repeated. And when it comes to our children, children very easily trigger their parents, make their parents blow up, feel overwhelmed, have some kind of knee jerk emotional reaction that we later regret. And it's, you know, our natural default. This is how we were all raised. Our natural default is to manage our children's behavior so that we don't blow up anymore, so that we don't need to feel overwhelmed or so that we don't need to feel as guilty as we do. That's natural and normal. However, it does not bring upon any real change. And when we talk about changing the dynamics in our family, we have to see ourselves differently than how we have before. In other words, if we want to create a breakthrough in any relationship in our life, whether it's with our children, with our partners, with our own parents, with our students as coaches, with our clients and our students, if we want to create a breakthrough in a relationship. It's going to require something different of us, something we have not been embodying yet. And this is where we have an opportunity as coaches and as parents to ask ourselves different questions than the ones we've been asking thus far. So in my work, I start digging into these relationships with my clients, with parents, and with adults in order to really see ourselves, see our role a little bit differently. Let me kind of unpack that a tiny bit. Generally speaking, parents, one of our roles that we most commonly kind of adapt, because this is how we've all been conditioned. Our role is to kind of keep our kids, you know, on the straight and narrow, right? Like, don't be rude, don't be too loud, don't be, you know, don't hurt anyone. Be respectful, be respectful. Be, you know, we want to raise children who ultimately will be productive, well adjusted, good members of society, and we want them to be that now too, right? We want them to have friends, we want them to be liked, we want them to be happy. And we manage. We focus on managing their behavior because we think that is how we help them get there. In other words, whether we reinforce positive behavior by giving out rewards, sticker charts or praise, or we try to give out, dole out consequences, punishments, threats, in order to discourage unwanted behavior, all we're focusing on is behavior. And that does not, in fact, lead to any sort of true change, and it doesn't build any kind of skills. Similarly, as coaches, if what we're doing with our students and our clients is just telling them what to do, sometimes we threaten, even as coaches, unintentionally, don't do that or else this will happen. That, again, is not the kind of leadership that is truly required of you, not as a parent and not as a coach. That is going to bring upon a breakthrough, a transformation, a true change with the person you are trying to lead or communicate or parent.

Oh, my gosh. So good. Okay, so I'm, you know, this is something I've talked extensively with you on is, you know, and, and I've talked about it in turn. It's interesting as I'm reflecting, as I'm listening to you and reflecting back, I've actually talked to you about this in terms of behavior, more so behaviors in clients rather than actual behavior in kids. And, and basically the line of responsibility for you as a coach, what are you responsible for versus what you know your client is responsible for and how you can, you know, be. Be, quote, unquote, worth what you're asking for.

Right.

And so, and so the reason why I even bring that up and talk about it in relationship to children and I've said before that I'm not a hover parent. Like I will let my, my kids learn the lessons that I know that they need to learn for themselves. So I'm. But I sometimes struggle to do this with my clients in an effort to protect them and to get the faster so in your thoughts and how you help people manage and navigate this experience with a client, you know, say, or a client coach relationship, how does someone really understand the difference between a breakthrough and a boundary and. And response level of responsibility?

This is such a good question and I love it. So as a coach, it starts and ends with you. Your worth cannot be, cannot hinge upon the advice you give someone that is not your worth. First of all, let's start with the fact that your worth is intrinsic. This is true for every human. You were born. You are worthy. Period. No need. Nothing can add or subtract from that. Now, if you truly believe that about yourself, which hopefully we do the work at least to bring ourselves to the point where we truly believe that about ourselves, that releases you from the need to prove your worth through your coaching. Because what you understand is the answers are not within you. The answers are within your client. Your job as a coach is to create a container where your client can start seeing things differently, hearing their own stories reflected back to them, because these stories go on. We all have stories in our minds, right? We tell ourselves this happened. It means that. And we draw all kinds of conclusions and we have our own narratives. That's what humans do. It isn't until we put those narratives out, we speak them, and then have them reflected back to us that we can all of a sudden examine them and start asking questions. Is that really true? Maybe I'm making it mean something. Then you can really start digging into the meat of what is the perspective I'm holding and how is that perspective creating the results I'm seeing that I don't like? And how do I change that perspective? So when we talk about our worth as coaches, that is our worth providing the container where someone can come in and have the opportunity to examine their own narrative. Because this is something that a person cannot do for themselves. And you started the conversation by saying, coaches need coaches. I have coaches too. You're one of them. Also, I do not pretend to be able to coach myself or to be able to be objective and truly hear myself until I'm in a safe Trusted space where a fellow coach can help me see what it is that I can't see, Help me see my blind spots, help me see the perspectives I might be holding onto that are keeping me stuck. That is the worth of a coach. Because we can never truly know what it is like to be in someone's shoes. Right. We don't know what it's like in their body. We don't know what it's like in their mind. We don't know their business the way they know their business. We couldn't possibly just like. I don't know what it's like to mother your children, because I'm not your children's mother. I'm not in the trenches with them every single day, 24 7.

I don't know about that. You're pretty. But you know.

You know what I mean, though, that.

As a mom, nobody knows your kids.

More than you do.

Sure.

Yeah. As a business owner, nobody knows your business more than you do. So as a coach, how could I possibly think that I would have the answers to your business? How could I possibly think that I know better what's right for your children than you do? I don't. I don't have the answers. So when I am okay with the fact that I don't actually have the answers, you do. The client has the answers. Your jobs, this goes back to redefining what is my job as a coach? What is my job as a parent? My job is to provide the container where someone can work through this for themselves. That's the skill they need to develop. That's the skill our children need to develop. Does that make sense?

Yeah, perfect sense. And it's so good. So when you're working with your parents, I mean, I know the answer to this for me, because I am one of your parents. But when you're working with your clients, you know, what do you do or say and how do you move them through this process of like, listen, my client's not adhering. Client being my kids. My kids are not listening. They're not doing the work. Blah, blah, blah. So, you know, what is the first step essentially, for a coach or for a parent to really start to actually navigate behavior change? Because that's essentially what we're looking for as a coach with a client or as a parent with a kid, how do we begin the process of changing behavior?

Beautiful. So, first of all, we have to understand how learning and change truly takes place. Because when we try to teach our children, our clients, when we teach from a place of fear, when we're using fear to modify behavior, which is what most parents do, we have to understand fear does modify behavior in the moment. Fear works. If you're a parent, you can find the leverage to overpower your child. You can 100%. You are physically bigger. At least for, probably for the kids 14, 15 years, you're probably still physically bigger. At some point that flips. In the beginning, you're physically bigger, you're definitely stronger, you're more experienced, you have way more authority. By definition, there is a huge power gap between you and your child, so you can find the leverage to pull. But what are you actually teaching? Are you actually getting them to listen to you or are you getting them to respond out of fear? Humans are wired. Our nervous system is wired to respond to threat. If somebody is threatening me physically or emotionally, you better believe I'm going to respond to that. I have to. It's not even, it's involuntary. It's not like I can choose, oh, I'm not going to respond to a threat. For a child, certainly that's impossible. But even for an adult, if you're driving and a pedestrian jumps in front of you, are you going to sit there thinking, should I slam the brakes? What should I? You're not. You're going to automatically slam the brakes. Because that's a big problem. It's a dangerous situation. This is a good thing that your nervous system will make you do that in, by the way, 1.5 seconds. That's average. So back to your children. If you want to change their behavior, can you use fear in the moment? You bet. But what are you really doing? Science, brain science, neuroscience tells us that anything we learn through fear becomes automated in our subconscious because it gets cataloged as, oh, this is a problem. This is a big threat. If this happens again, you should respond very quickly in the same way you did. So I'll give an example. If a child misbehaves and a parent shuts that child down in the moment by yelling, the child will say, oh, okay, I better shut up. This is how I survive this moment. Now that gets cataloged in their subconscious. And every time a similar situation comes up, because this was a fear based situation, that's what we learned. We learned to automate this response so that next time we're faster, the child might again immediately shut down. But what happens to that child one day when they're a grown up and a similar situation comes up in their adult life? Not that their parent is yelling at them now, but somebody else perceives them as being too loud, too much, too intense. That fire that, in that kind of automated response, fires again. And this is where this is. And now these people are our clients. Now we're coaching those same people who have all these automated subconscious responses, and they are operating from those responses and inside their business, but now it's holding them back. So this is where the opportunity comes in for us as coaches to understand where our clients are operating out of fear, where that may or may not have originated, and how to help them shift out of that and start learning a different response to these same situations. And this is why I love talking about both parenting and entrepreneurship in the same breath. Because they both challenge you to look at your own internal landscape. They both challenge you to grow and become a different version of yourself in order to create the kind of family life you want, in order to create the kind of business you want.

Oh, my gosh, this is so good. So there's a couple of things, too, that I'd love you to expand on, especially, you know, with your clients you work with and your experience as well, because I know you said earlier that you, too, identify as a high achiever, like me and like you, chances are, if you're listening to this podcast. So, you know, I'm curious because I'm just as a high achiever, it's always moving the goal post. Always like, okay, great, so now I learned this, and I'm going to master it, and I'm going to keep moving. So as you're starting to kind of unpack this and start to remove the layers in, you know, your own internal landscape, and then building relationships with your clients and your family and your kids, for me, at least, I get this inclination of, like, I need to get it right. I need to do it right. And especially in fitness, there is this fitness, like, linear world of two plus two is four, and four plus four is eight. Right. How do you navigate the nuances of basically living a human experience? Meaning you're not going to get it right, you're not going to be perfect, but how do you decide what is optimal? If that makes sense?

Yeah, and it's a beautiful question, and it's a really important question to be asking ourselves. And so a couple things. First, we have to recognize that this idea of linear learning is something we got from school, because in school, that's how we learn. It is a linear process. And I'm not, you know, I'm not throwing shade at school. It is what it is. But we have to understand that that's where we got it from. Whereas when it comes to growth, evolution, relationships, healing, none of that is linear. So that model cannot apply. When it comes to growing your business. As whether you are growing your business, you are the client or you are the coach, you have to understand that the linear model does not apply. So that's number one. Number two, you have to start rewiring and understanding that it is safe for you to fail. And this is a big one. This is a really difficult one because for people who have been conditioned from early childhood, like me and like you, to constantly be moving that goal post, that is a pattern you become comfortable with. It causes you a lot of pain and suffering, that pattern. But you are very familiar with it, so you keep it. Familiarity is safety. That's how humans are wired. Something familiar is somewhat predictable. Even chaotically predictable is still predictable. So we continue in these patterns that we know and don't like, but we know them. And now we create that same life for ourselves that we had early on. In other words, so I can share what this looks like for me personally, I always learned to jump higher. Every time I reached the bar, I had to jump up the next bar. So I never, there was never a time in my life where I could just rest on my laurels and say, hey, this was good enough and I'm good now. There was never I'm good now. It was always, okay, what's the next thing? What's the next achievement? What's the next bar I can jump over? What's the next hoop I can show that I can jump through? Because those hoops showcased my worthiness. So here I am now as a business owner, and every time I reach a milestone, my knee jerk reaction is to set the next milestone. And what I do, and you know this, I practice this consciously. I force myself to stop and recognize my achievement and how far I have come. I have to force myself to do this. It's not. It doesn't come naturally to me yet. So I make a deliberate, conscious effort to stop. I do move the goalpost. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You want to keep growing and advancing, and that's fine. And I recognize the growth. I recognize the achievements. I recognize the milestones that have been met. I recognize that where I am today, I would have killed to be here a year ago. And here I am. And that makes it safe for me to continue and experience growth. So when we talk about how do we create that space with our clients and with our children, the first step is we have to create resonance. And when I talk about resonance, I mean resonance, subconscious resonance. When we are communicating, there are words coming out of our mouths, but there's so much more happening that we may or may not be aware of. There's body language, there's tone of voice, there's facial expression, there's the look in your eye. All these things communicate something to the person you're speaking with. So if you want to create a container where someone feels safe, where someone can trust to become vulnerable and open, you have to create a resonance of safety with that person. And how you do that first is by being very aware of what internal state you're in. Are you calm? Are you thinking about a million other things? Are you truly present in the moment? Do you have an agenda? Are you thinking about, how am I going to get my kid to put their shoes on so we can get to the bus stop? Random example. Or are you present with your child in their struggle in that moment, releasing the agenda, not caring just for the moment, not caring if we make it on time to the bus stop, but just being in the struggle in the moment. It takes so much less time than we think it's going to take to just have that moment to create connection and resonance so that someone feels known, heard, and seen. That is the first thing step to create those breakthroughs that are coming next.

Oh, my gosh. I have so many questions. And I'm laughing because that's exactly. That was the moment for me when I was like, I can't. I need help. I need help with this relationship building. Abby is not putting her shoes on. Oh, my gosh. You know, it's such a small thing, but, you know, it wasn't in the moment, right. Because I had to. It's urgent. We get fueled by urgency so much, whether we like it or not. But humans operate from being reactive that rather than proactive. Right. I had an opportunity there to, you know, start getting her shoes on 10 minutes earlier. Right. There's always lessons.

Right.

So I'm curious. This is bringing up a good point. And I'm curious your thoughts on this. And we're starting to talk about creating these types of safe spaces in order to connect in this way. Is that, you know, how do you navigate, you know, what you're responsible for. Meaning. Meaning in this, in this world, as we're starting, you know, personal development world, as we're working on this, there is intention versus impact. You as a person, just based on what you were saying, can intend to create a safe space, not recognizing or realizing that you, your subconscious or your, your facial expressions or non verbal communicate communication style is communicating a very different experience. Right. So there be to me I feel like there is a nuanced line conversation between the responsibility of delivery intention versus the impact. So how do you navigate this experience?

That's a very kind of advanced level question. Because here's what I know about human behavior. Our behavior erupts spontaneously from the state of our nervous system. In other words, I don't truly control my body language. I don't, I don't. I'm not consciously aware of the tone of voice I use. I'm not consciously aware of, of the type of look I'm giving you or my facial expressions. I couldn't be. No human can be consciously aware of these things in every given moment. You can't. They're automatic. So when I am consciously aware of my internal state, I know that my behavior will spontaneously erupt from that. This is true for our children too. When we look at the child who is completely having a meltdown. When we look at our clients when they're having a meltdown, we have to remember this is a behavior that is erupting spontaneously from their internal emotional state. So when we speak to that, when we get clear on our own emotional state first and then we can speak to the emotional state of our children and our clients, that is what. That is where the responsibility lies, in my opinion as a coach, because that is something I can control. I can have control over my own emotional state. I can have control over the environment I create and I can have control over the open door for people to walk through. What I can't control is whether or not they choose to walk through. So I know you give this example all the time and I've adopted it from you. You taught me this. I can teach you how to do push ups, but I can't do your push ups for you. And it's the same thing with your clients and even with your children. I can teach you the skills. I can provide the container, safe container for you to do that and fail. I can't do the work for you. And this is really, this comes down to your strength and your personal power as a coach and as a parent to know this is not my job. In fact, if I try to do your job for you, if I try to fix and rescue, I am going to be hurting you in the long run because I will not be empowering you to develop the skills you need to develop. Children need to develop the skills to self Regulate. Children need to understand how to communicate their anger or their big feelings in a way that's appropriate. Not by hitting and not by cursing. Clients need to learn to take responsibility for where they are in their business and not to come to us. Rescue me, Rescue my business. Just tell me what to do and I'm going to do it right. That never works. That. That is the line, that is the boundary. And, and the work around setting those boundaries is, you know, that. I think that is the. I call it the holy grail of parenting. I call boundaries the holy grail of parenting because most. For most of us, it's an Achilles heel. It's a weakness. We don't know how to set good boundaries. We're uncomfortable setting good boundaries. We think boundaries are like. We set boundaries in a way that is like a wall between us and someone else, when really boundaries should be the connector between us and someone else. So the whole topic of boundaries is. Is in itself a mammoth. But this is part of that work, knowing how to draw that line of, I'm just going to hold the door open for you as long as I need to. I'm going to open it 5 million times, if that is what you need, until you finally cross through.

So you're bringing up a really good. You're. This is like just so good. Because my next question was about boundaries and consequence because how, you know, you'll hear. And I know, I'm working on it a lot, which is, you know, how do we let our children, let our clients, let people be held accountable for their actions and, and my husband will say, you know, pay the consequences for what it is that they did.

Right.

Versus, you know, so that, you know, the idea is that. So that, you know, like, we don't kill anybody and murderers go to jail. Right. You know, so that's not saying that consequences are necessarily bad. It's just how do you define the boundary? What happens when you cross the boundary? And where do consequences fit in this world?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So in my world, the only consequences that fit in are naturally occurring consequences. And I'll give you an example. If you drive your car and you don't wear a seatbelt and you get into an accident, you are going to get. You're more likely to get very hurt. That is a consequence of not putting your seatbelt on. Right? If you don't pay taxes, you're going to get a fine or you're going to go to jail. That's.

That's in the law, right?

That's a consequence. It's not up to me. I can't tell you if you should, you know, pay your taxes or not. I can't tell you if you should put your seatbelt on or not. But there are going to be consequences if you don't. Now when it comes to me as a parent, I don't give consequences because those are not natural. Those are just in my mind, those are the ones I made up. If you speak rudely, then you don't get your TV for a week. Whatever. I made that up. Right. That's not a naturally occurring consequence. So as a parent, for me personally, the only natural consequences I don't let my kids experience relate to safety. So I will not let my child, you know, run into the street without looking just so that they can experience the natural consequence of that. That's dangerous. I'm not going to put my child in danger. But I am going to push that boundary, that, push that line as much as I can. So even when it means I know this is a very painful experience for my child and I'm going to let them experience it and I will hold that space for them to experience this pain safely, with love, with compassion. So I'll give you an example. When my daughter was, I don't know, three, she decided she was going to go to preschool wearing a bathing suit and sandals. And it was the middle of winter, it was pouring rain, it was freezing cold outside. That was not, was not a good choice. And in that moment, I had to kind of get honest with myself and ask, okay, I have two options here. I can overpower her and say, no, you're going to wear warm clothes and rain boots and a coat because that's what you need to do. Or I could let her experience the natural consequences of her choice. And what I decided to do was I packed a little bag with weather appropriate clothes and I told her, listen, this is what I think you should wear for this kind of weather. And I'm going to give it to you in a bag, put it in your cubby in case you need it, and if you don't need it, that's fine, it's your choice. She went to preschool, she got drenched. When I picked her up, she was shivering like a chihuahua. Her, her school, her preschool teacher called me in the middle of the day. She was like, are you sure about this? Do you. I put a coat on her. I was like, don't do anything. Remind her it's in the cubby if she wants it, but don't make her do anything. And I didn't say a word when she came home, I brought her home, I put her in a warm bath. She's nine years old now. Ever since that day, the first thing she does in the morning is she goes outside and she's like, what's the weather like today? And that's how she uses what she wears.

Done.

This should have. This could have been a huge battle between us, right? And I decided to let her experience the consequences and not tell her when she came back. I wasn't. I told you. So this is why. This is what happens when you don't listen to mommy. I didn't do any of that. I didn't shame her. I didn't. I empowered her. I used it as a moment to empower her. Okay, you fell, right? I see that and it hurts. And I'm here to help you get up. Let's go take a warm bath together, make some hot cocoa like, we made it a nice afternoon for the two of us. And you learn something about yourself, right? You learn something. This is really. And this is the key piece of it, I think, is when you know your client is going some. You have to learn through your own experience. That's just how it is. That's how we learn. You don't learn because somebody told you. You learn because you failed and you felt it in your body and it sucked, and you don't want to do that again. And you have to trust your children that they're smart enough to learn. They are. And you have to trust your clients that they're going to learn too. And in order for you to do that, you have to tolerate some pain, some suffering, some emotions. So if you can tolerate that in yourself, you can also tolerate it in someone else. That's the direct correlation between how much you allow your clients to experience difficulty before you jump in and rescue them. It's in direct correlation to how much you can tolerate your own difficult experiences. And this is why entrepreneurship is one of the fastest vehicles for growth. Entrepreneurship and coaching. I would say if you're a coach, you are on whether you know it or not, you're on a fast track to personal growth. And same is true as a parent. And this is exactly these situations is exactly why.

So I'm curious your opinion and thoughts on invisible consequences. And when I say invisible consequences, I'm talking about things like relationship based. So, for example, I'll say something and I'll use my husband as an example. But we all do this, even with our, you know, experience. With our children or clients. But, you know, I'll say something to my husband that, like, really hurts his feelings. And my intention was not to hurt his feelings. Of course it wasn't. It was just to A, communicate a boundary, or B, to just, you know, share something that was on my mind. Sometimes he'll. He calls me heartless. And I'm not. I'm not heartless at all. But he's like, you didn't even take into consideration how I would feel. And in my thought, in my mind, I was like, well, I. I can hear where you're at, but that's your choice, right? So, however, he'll be like, wait a second. But you're the one who said it, right? So I'm, you know, so. So sometime. And another example of that is, like, when someone will have the best of intentions to, like, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this. And I fell into this trap, okay? It was in an effort to rescue. But then I couldn't read or see, like, how my client was perceiving that.

And.

And so I am curious, you know, so to me, I had crossed an invisible boundary, not knowing that it was there without the intention behind that wasn't there. But the consequence of that was like a severed sense of trust. So how do you navigate the invisible boundaries, essentially, right?

So, first of all, know you are going to cross those boundaries. You are going to trigger people unintentionally. That's what triggers are, right? You unintentionally step on a landmine that's somebody else put there. How would you know it was there? So when that happens, and I do this all the time, by the way, I trigger people left, right and center. And I have so much compassion for that because when. When it. When it comes into my awareness that I did that, I hold so much compassion for the person I triggered. And I honestly asked myself, was there a different way I could have said that? Maybe there was. I mean, there's definitely room for us to reflect on not just what we say, but how we say it. Because I think that's more important than what we say. And when it comes to relationships with adults, with children, it's a little different. But with adults, the way I see it is, if I crossed an invisible boundary by mistake, I will genuinely ask myself, could I have done this a different way that would have landed better with this person, number one? Number two, I take accountability for what I said and how I said it. And maybe that requires an apology. Sometimes it does Sometimes it doesn't though. Then whatever the person does beyond that point, that's on them. That is where the line is. So I take accountability for what I said and how I said it. I thank you for telling me how it landed on you. So now I can think about this going forward. I can know this is a sensitive spot for Bev. Maybe next time I want to say this, I'm going to think through it more, a little bit more, because I don't have the intention of triggering. I don't have the intention of crossing those boundaries. So, sure, there's something there for me to learn too. But beyond that, that would be on the other person, what to do with that information now that you know, I had no intention. The impact is always on the other person.

So good. Oh, my gosh. So good. And honestly, I could talk to you 700 times. We're gonna have to do a part two because we didn't even talk about trauma and how that is like, we got big T trauma, but we also have, like, smaller things. Right. Sometimes when we're in this world. And when I say smaller things, I mean things that people wouldn't consider, like PTS style smaller things. Right. Like. But they have massive impacts on who we are as a human. And when we start to open up these doors and thinking about it, it starts to feel like I'm broken. I'm breaking my children, they got picked last for school and now we're going to be in therapy. I'm exaggerating, but also not so we haven't even cracked that code. So we'll definitely do a part two. But for now, I want to be mindful of your time. So for those of you who want to really go down this path with you, talk more, learn more about what it is like to connect with you, work with you. What are some of the best places.

I should send them? So I would. So my two social media channels are at Rachel Duffy here on Instagram and on TikTok. And I can give you those links to put in the show notes if you want. And just reach out to me, DM me, let me know what. Where you need support. What I could help you with. I have a ton of different resources and I can even throw in a free resource for your people if. If they're interested. It's kind of like a mini guide on, you know, what are the first steps we can take as parents in order to start changing the relationships with our children. So I'm happy to share that.

Would love it. All right, Rachel, you are amazing. Truly amazing. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm so honored to be here with you. Thank you.

Bev thank you for listening to the PT Profit Podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team atinfo simpson fitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.