S01 E04 | The Human Design of Leadership | Courtney Addy on FoundHer Rising

Hi and welcome to Founder Rising, the podcast for women founders in wellness, coaching, and consulting who are ready to build businesses that create freedom, impact, and income. I'm your host, Christine Huckele. I'm a business coach, former psychotherapist, and mentor to women scaling service-based businesses. Today I'm joined by Courtney Addy, the brilliant force behind the Beacon Collective, where she helps leaders make conscious values-driven decisions. Courtney is a certified executive coach, facilitator, coach educator, and experiential designer who blends over 20 years in high-profile executive roles with deep expertise in leadership development, human design, and holistic well-being. Through her work, she guides individuals and teams toward clarity, alignment, and authentic impact. So here's my question for you today, the listener. What if the key to leading others starts with truly knowing yourself? If you're ready to lead with authenticity, abundance, and purpose, you will love this episode. I'd like to welcome the inspiring Courtney Addy. Thank you so much for being here, Courtney.

Christine, I'm so excited to be here and, um, and talk to your listeners.

Amazing. I'm so excited to have you. We connected a while back and I've been looking forward to this for weeks now. So let's just dive right in. If we go way back to the beginning for you, just tell us a little bit about what was it that initially pulled you into entrepreneurship and how did those first few steps actually feel when you took them?

Yeah, you know, it's so funny. I think I've always been an entrepreneur. Um, at the age of 12, I, um, found myself making these little necklaces, sewing tubes and putting marbles in them, flipping them inside out, putting beads on them. And selling them to teachers and craft shops and all those things. And it was with that money that my family actually went to Disney World for Christmas. And so thinking about it, I think I've always had this sort of like entrepreneurial drive in me to really want to build and do and put something out into the world. And I think that as my 20-year corporate career was sort of coming to a close, it was a moment for me to really think about really the tool called Ikigai, if you're familiar with it. I sat down and I really looked at where I'd been in my career, what I was passionate about, what the world needed, who would pay me, and what my skills were. And I found this word coach, and I was like, oh dear, coach, what does that mean? What is this word? And I studied the industry and I got to understand it a little bit better of what coaching really was. But I also realized that I didn't have that skill set yet. I'd never had a coach. And there's a big difference between mentoring and advising and consulting. And so I went back to school to learn how to be a coach and kind of the rest is history. It all sort of launched out of that moment. And I love building brands. I love building my own brand. It's a little bit harder. Market or market thyself is definitely a challenge sometimes. But it's been— no looking back. It's been wonderful.

It sounds like it came really naturally for you, like kind of almost born into it and that it was just a really obvious step for you.

Yeah, yeah, it was.

So when you look back at those early chapters, what moments or choices quietly changed the trajectory of your business from when you first stepped into it over the years?

Yeah, I think the first choice was really going to the icky guy and going like, all right, I'm going to give this, I'm going to give this a whirl and figuring out where I wanted to study and the pathway to becoming a certified coach. It was very important to me foundationally to do it with a certain amount of ethics and foundation. And, you know, since then I've picked up and put down a bunch of other different modalities that now shape the practice, my practice at the Beacon Collective. But that was very formative in terms of the start. And I think then it was really the declaration. I mean, there was a day that I remember, I think it was like March 28th, and I had written the LinkedIn post saying, that's it, my career is over. You know, a little, a little shocking, but it was. I mean, when you have a job, you do work for money. When you have a career, you're building a whole new sort of skill set. But when you step into your calling, it's really something completely different. And so I, I had, I had declared to the LinkedInosphere that I was no longer, you know, accepting job offers or opportunities or being recruited, that I was really going to be building this business with both feet in. And that declaration was like a really big moment for me. I remember I shut my laptop. I hadn't even told my husband that I was doing that because he was still sort of hopeful that I would go back and, you know, have benefits and all of those fun things that you don't necessarily have access to as an entrepreneur. And I shut my laptop and I live on the farm. I walked out and I sat in the field and he was the first person to like my post and then said, do you want to go get, do you want to go get a beer? And I was like, yes. That's amazing. I sat at our local pub with all my friends and sort of responded to all of the outpouring of love that was coming in for me at the moment. But it was terrifying, the declaration. And I think the next moment was my first client, which funnily enough, or strangely enough, he had originally been a mentor of mine and— or a mentee. He had selected me as a mentor from, I think, doing a lot of research. I was the one that he wanted to mentor him. In business and, um, I wasn't available. And, uh, he came back to me and he said, I'd really like it if you could be available more readily to me. Can I pay you to be my— can I pay you to be my coach? And I said, well, coaching is very different than mentoring, but if you want to go down that path with me, let's do it. And he was my first client and he's been with me for the last 3 years. So it's been really, really, really wonderful.

What a testament. You know, one of the things that I keep noticing shine through, both in the earlier conversation we had as well as today, is it seems me that you're just so clear on what your intuition is saying and that when it speaks, it's just, you know, you make that declaration and just say it to the world to hold yourself accountable.

There is an element of that, and that's not always been comfortable. I mean, one of the challenges that I've struggled with, and I think we all struggle with to some degree, you know, inner limiting beliefs and whatever those things are that are monsters in the mental closet, right? You know, I think for a very long time I was drowning underneath like the weight of judgment, like judging myself for the thing that I was and the thing that I was becoming, you know, and just giving myself the grace to step into that, you know, worried about what other people were going to think, you know, being in this corporate executive role and now she's coaching, you know, what does that mean, right? And, um, or the judgment of the circumstances that really led for me to, to launch an entrepreneurship, uh, venture. And so it took a very long time to move through that, you know. And one of the things that I like about my coaching practice, or comes through so authentically, is I've put myself through all of the degrees of self-awareness that I work on with my clients. Right. And so that was one of the ones that I wasn't always that way, Christine. It wasn't always so easy for me to, like, you know, not be afraid or worried about what other people would think when I decided to, like, make a declaration and a bold move. Yeah.

Well, I really appreciate you speaking to that because I don't know about you, but I look out into the— especially the female entrepreneurial world and you see a lot of success stories, which is amazing. And what you don't hear about is some of the trials and challenges that we all experience, whether they're our inner thoughts and beliefs and things we're coming up against, or whether they're out about the business. Yeah. Could you say a little bit more about some of the muddy areas or sticky areas or challenges you've faced, especially in these later stages of growing your business?

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Interesting. Um, I feel like I'm building my business backwards.

Say more.

Um, you know, so much of my— you know, it's sort of like I got that first client and then another one and another one, and then I had all these referrals and it was great. And you know, when you step into coaching, it's what's your signature offer, what's your niche, who do you serve, what's your ICP, all of those things. And you know, it, it took me actually the experimentation, right? Once I was a certified coach, it's like, okay, I understand the foundational tools of to have a coaching conversation and hold space and listen, right? You know, when I was a corporate executive, I was paid to make decisions for other people. And coaching is really about sort of like not giving your advice or your opinion, really just harnessing and pulling that hidden wisdom out of other people. But as I was building my practice, I continued to study different modalities and then experiment with them on my clients and figure out what worked or what didn't work. And so the culmination of that actually then brought the frameworks that I really wanted to use in my practice, or brought the offerings that I really wanted to bring in my practice. And so I, I, that's what I mean by building backwards. I sort of, through this experimentation and sort of like the building of the thing, now I have a ton of clarity on what the Beacon Collective is, the tools, the frameworks, the results that we get, the type of people that we get to serve now and who we want to serve in the future. And so For me, there was always that pressure of like, you're not doing it right. And I would say to any entrepreneur, again, follow your gut, listen to your own sort of inner compass in terms of, you know, what you want to step into and experiment with. And if it doesn't work, you can pick it up and put it back on the shelf, having known that, right? So I, I worked through a lot of different modalities to come to the type of coaching practice that I have today.

So say a little bit, I have a couple of questions now based on what you've just shared. Say a little bit about how your ideal client and how your offerings have changed from the beginning. You kind of told us like how it happened, but, but what can you summarize for us? What is the difference between when you started and now?

Um, well, it's really interesting. When I was looking for tools originally, a lot of coaching, um, uh, practices use psychometric assessments, right? The Hogan analysis, the the, the Lumina Learning, the, you know, StrengthsFinders, all of those types of things. And none of those felt like they were ever fully integrative. Like, yes, okay, so I know this about myself, or I know that about myself. So they offer self-awareness, but it's hard to really integrate them into the 35,000 decisions we make every day, right? And so I began to— I pushed into emotional intelligence, and I found out that where emotions are fundamentally energy and motion, I found my way to Human Design. And, uh, Human Design is a combination of, uh, quantum physics and all of these ancient sort of modalities and puts them together. And I fell in love with it, but I also was like the biggest skeptic, critic, whatever you want to call it, right? And I was like, oh dear, right? How is my practice beginning to go in the direction of— I would, I would say moving from emotional intelligence to energy intelligence. And I really struggled with, you know, you know, somebody said, oh, are you coming out of the spirituality closet, Courtney? And I said, well, aren't we all craving something? And I— the way that I think about it is that's just energy we can't see. And when you begin to— and so when you, you ask the question about how has my practice evolved, Human Design and energy intelligence is an onboarding thing that I do with all of my clients now. Most of them gravitate to me for that deep knowledge and understanding and the craving of really understanding themselves with a level of awareness that they have never known. Right? I'm 48 years old. I wish I knew these things when I was 30. As a mother, I get to know these things about my children and can be a better, a better guide for them through that lens. And so my practice is really sort of when I talk about picking up and putting down modalities and what do I want to incorporate, Human Design has become a foundational part of that, which also sent me back to school for 3 years to really become a Human Design professional.

So amazing. Amazing. What would you say to those listening who are earlier on in that trajectory and still getting their feet wet, still trying to figure out who they want to serve, perhaps trying on skills and tools that they've learned, but they're hearing your story going, Oh, like, I can't wait to get there, you know, to that place where things just feel more aligned and there's more clarity. What would you say was the biggest thing, whether mindset shift or something external? Like, what was the biggest thing that helped you embrace more authentically who you want to serve and the way you want to coach?

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I believe in radical curiosity. I believe in abundance. But I think looking through it through, looking through the building of my business through the lens of like, this is just an experiment, right? And I love that mindset. And it's okay. Like experiments don't, like I will learn something from this. If it fails, I will learn something from this. And just that beginner's mindset of, you know, you're not gonna be great at it day one, but if you show up and give yourself some grace and the willingness to just look through it of like, this radical curiosity of, I wonder what's going to happen, or I wonder what, you know, when I ask this question to this person, what they will say or what they will learn. My favorite question at the end of a coaching session is, you know, what's one aha that you can take with you? And I'm always fascinated by, right, whatever falls out of that, like some new piece of awareness or hidden knowledge that now they can take with them on their journey.

I love that. I think that piece about being willing to fail, right? And I don't even look at it as failing. It's just being willing to learn. And I think it's so important to recognize that it's impossible to win at it every time. We're going to do 100 things, 200 things, 500 things before we find the way. And if we let those first few or even those first 99 things stop us, we're never going to get, you know, to where you are and to where those that we see up the ladder from us are. So speaking of failures and, and maybe more accurately, just things that are challenging, thinking about your business today, specifically people, I don't know if you have anyone on your team, but systems, you know, things that you've put in place to create a little bit more ease, money in general, like what are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned recently around those aspects?

Well, and this is not for everyone, but what I've learned is, you know, just because I'm a good coach doesn't mean I'm a good entrepreneur, doesn't mean I am good at technology. Right.

And so I share that with you.

Yeah. And, you know, it makes me a little bit uncomfortable, right? It makes me a little uncomfortable. But what I have learned is that the only way— and I think that this covers all of them, systems, money, and people, right? I've paid a lot of money to have somebody come in and have it like the done-for-you model. And what I've realized is like, I have to go through the mess and be hands-on keyboard myself in order to like create it, right? And so while my website isn't perfect, right? And it doesn't necessarily say exactly what I want it to right now. All of that has been part of my process of really honing and coming through and, and figuring it out, writing all my content. I decided this summer I had an email list of like 2,000 people that I wasn't communicating with, right? Okay, it was time. It was time. But I got all excited and I was going to launch a newsletter and I went to go. I wanted it to go out on Tuesday mornings and instead of scheduling it, I sent it out like 6 o'clock on a Friday. I just, oh my goodness, and there's a lot about There's a lot about my energy that's designed that way, like skipping steps and like making mistakes for everyone to see. And, you know, in understanding my human design is also giving me a little bit more of like forgiveness and permission to be like messy. But what I would say is that, you know, I'm hands on keyboard in my tech stack and all of the things that I do so that I can then inform other people based on the capabilities of the tools and what's available. You'll laugh. I was trying to figure out how to create a card sort tool for my core values workshop that I do. And when I'm in person, I have a card deck. And when I'm remote, I have a Miro board. And I was trying to figure out, like, every time I onboard a new client or do a group, it's, it's not great. And a friend of mine— again, have friends in business who are also entrepreneurs, very, very important— turned me on to the vibe coding. Trend. And within 48 hours, I'd actually coded my own app and it's on my website right now.

And so that is amazing.

It's incredible what technology can do. Yeah. And I think I'm coming of age as an entrepreneur right at the moment when technology is there to sort of like really not intimidate me, but catch me and have all of the creative ideas in my head in terms of how I want to use it to guide the business, like just sort of meet me right where I'm at. Canva, I love designing. I love doing all of that. But if I had to go back to school and learn Adobe, I don't think it ever would have happened. So there's time, right? Right. My, my inner graphic designer is like all excited. But I think it's a really juicy time for the technology that is intuitive and that is available now and that is low-code, no-code in order to really bring some of that to life. But I've learned, you know, that is also part of doing business, understanding the financial technology, the the marketing, the marketing operations technology, the full tech stack.

Agreed. Agreed. So, going back and tying this into the piece about getting support, right? Not doing everything yourself. Many of us have heard about this idea of the business owner being the bottleneck in the business. What would you say specifically to those founders that are— I see them usually in the $150,000 to $500,000 gross annually stage where there's maybe some beliefs around you know, who am I to hire this out, first of all? And secondly, fears around if I do hire this out, you know, no one's going to do it as well as me. How can I afford this? You know, there's a lot of fears and concerns out there about what that means to outsource something, to bring someone onto your team. What advice or words of wisdom would you have to a fellow founder at that stage?

Oh gosh, um, you're not designed to do it all. Right. And as an entrepreneur, you inherently have a unique set of gifts. Right. And so I would spend a lot of time really making sure that you find and establish people that you can trust or communities of, of people who are going through this with you. You're usually as an entrepreneur going to be in the barrage of like, I can help you do this, I can help you do that, like that. You know, 100 leads or this or that or whatever. And so, you know, go find people who've been through it already and ask them what they've learned from the process, because you will apparently spend money that makes you feel like it was a waste. But how can you sort of short circuit that by, you know, finding a community of other entrepreneurs, getting the lessons that they've learned at that point in time and what was the most valuable for them, and then really look and And again, you can experiment with it, right? You don't necessarily have to sign, you know, a very expensive year-long contract in order to get the help you need. You can work on a trial basis with a virtual assistant, or I actually have in my platform a variety of experts that I can put a proposal out there and, you know, they know the platform really well and I can say, here's what I'm trying to do and interview a bunch of people and get some quotes back and then really pick the one that's gonna be best for me. There's a lot, there's a lot of different ways to do it. But I would say you have unique gifts and if you're finding yourself frustrated or upset or sort of like not able to move through something where you're getting stuck, there are other entrepreneurs out there potentially who can fill those gaps for you. Yes, that is all great advice.

And I really want to needle home for the listeners the piece about, you know, you didn't use these phrases, but I call it this way, looking up the ladder. What have those who have gone before you done that has worked? And also this idea of putting yourself in rooms with other entrepreneurs so that we don't feel so lonely. Sometimes we think we're the only one facing those challenges or I shouldn't be having those challenges. And when we are, when we have a mentor, when we're in rooms with other female entrepreneurs who are doing the same thing, we realize the challenges are, you know, they're unique to us, but they're also not unique. They're happening to all of us.

They are. It's part of the, it's part of the game, right? Or the part of the fun of it, right? Um, but it's so true. And that's why, you know, when I was doing a lot of, uh, one-on-one work with my clients, moving into the group work— when you're working with people who are all standing at a major threshold in their life, right? They could be facing an involuntary exit, they could be moving from, uh, career to calling, they could be making a major shift, a major decision. When you hear and hold space for all of those stories at a level of vulnerability, it creates whole entire just, you know, just really juicy space. And so it's the same thing from an entrepreneurial standpoint, finding those other people who are in a similar but different situation just creates, you know, a feeling that you're not alone and that, you know, you can, you can do this, right? You can do this.

Yeah. Well, speaking of juicy space, as we near the end here, tell, tell me and tell the listeners what is next for you. You've, you've been in the game. Your offerings have evolved, like, what, what's your vision? What are your next steps?

Um, so first of all, I told you I built my business backwards, so there's things on the front end that I gotta go and, uh, I gotta put, I gotta put together. So formalizing the offer, right? I don't want it to be, you know, through whispers and referrals that people who find me find me. I want to be a little bit more, um, prominent about that, uh, on the front end. Um, but I'm also moving from working with, um, executives specifically, and groups of executives into working with learning and development leaders. So my business is moving and evolving beyond just sort of like a direct-to-client or direct-to-coachee practice to working with learning and development leaders. Because like I said earlier, I wished I'd known all of this about myself as a young executive in my 30s. It wouldn't have been nice. And I was like, why, you know? And so I look at sort of where we are again in terms of what the world needs with 5 generations in the workforce and, you know, really understanding your core values and the context and conditions that you need to thrive. And so I'm building out— well, I built out a package of 2026 offerings that I'm having some wonderful conversations with HR leaders and learning and development leaders that I've known most of my career and that I've been introduced to. And so those conversations are really exciting because Um, if you get bit by the coaching bug like I have, you want everyone to coach or everyone to have an access to this level of self-awareness, especially when they're in leadership roles and guiding others. So, um, I'm really excited about that for next year.

And that's so exciting. I'm excited for you. Okay, final question. So for that female founder who's listening, who has started to build her business, who has maybe even built a successful one-on-one business, whether they're a therapist, whether they're a nurse practitioner, whether they're a coach, you know, whatever it is that they're offering. What would you say to that founder who's just starting to think about what's next, right? What advice would you offer that they could implement in the next few weeks?

Um, when you say what's next, you mean sort of like the, the tipping point, or what's on the other side of that for them, perhaps beyond one-on-one work? Oh, I would say, um, Honestly, I would experiment with a group work. I really, really would. You know, if it lights them up. There's a lot of asynchronous learning that goes on out there. There's a lot of that that you can build. I haven't necessarily gone down that path. My scaling went from going from one-on-one to group work. And like I said, it's this whole entire different dynamic. It's a whole entire different financial dynamic as well in terms of scaling your business or scaling your practice. And I do group work both virtually and I'm an experiential girl. We do retreats a couple times a year. And just to step out of the noise in the home and the chaos and all the things in order to really focus on yourself and your wellness as a part of your own journey. I would experiment with it. And you get in your head when you move to group work, like what if nobody comes or nobody signs up or I haven't priced it right or what will happen? What I would say is like, just give it a try and see what happens and keep that like that, that experimental mindset.

Yes, it's so important.

Group work financially is a game changer for sure.

That's awesome advice. I love it. So inspiring. And I'm hoping that somebody listening is hearing that and it's those words are giving them the nudge to just try it, to just experiment. So before we wrap up, Courtney, I would love for you to share What is the best way for our listeners to connect with you if they want to learn more about your work or your office?

Yes, yes. You can go to thebeaconcollective.com and you can see a little bit more about my practice and the modalities that we have there. And you can also email me at courtney@thebeaconcollective.com. And I spend an awful lot of time on LinkedIn, so you can track me down there as well.

That's where I found you, LinkedIn.

Yes.

Thank you so much for that. And thank you for being so inspiring. Thank you for your authenticity and sharing not just about your success, but the real challenges that we all face. I'm just so appreciative of that. And thank you to the listener for tuning in to Founder Rising. If today's episode resonated with you, make sure to follow the show, share it with another founder, and leave a quick review. It helps more women who need it find these conversations. You can always connect with me and Courtney on LinkedIn or learn more about how I support women grow and scale service-based businesses at huckleahorizons.com. Until next time, keep rising and keep building the business that gives you freedom to live, lead, and create on your terms.