Interview with Carlette Bradley of The Masterpiece Project on How She Started on Coaching

Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, an author of the book Conscious Design. And today I'm excited to have Carlette Bradley, CEO of the Masterpiece Consulting Firm. She's a coach, keynote speaker, mastermind facilitator, and if you look at her LinkedIn, a lot of other things around helping people with their mental state, their ability to function as, you know, human beings, as we say. So welcome to the show. Good to have you here.

Yeah, thank you, Ian. I'm glad to be here.

Yeah, so first, everybody loves a good origin story. So can you share a little bit how, how you got into this and What really motivates you into this space is huge. I don't do coaching, but it's great that we need people like you. So share that, share that story a little bit.

Yeah. So the quick version, I guess, is, you know, I just identified maybe around 2016 that it was what I was doing anyway, right? Just naturally and organically how people engage with me. trusted me with their deepest, darkest secrets, you know, would refer to me for advice, whether it was regarding their career or their personal lives. And I was literally doing it anyway, right? And so, and when I had that epiphany, I just decided to make it official, you know, become certified and to start my business. And the Masterpiece Project was birthed in 2018.

Awesome. And you mentioned helping people in personal and business. I find it's— I've had coaches and it's usually hard to separate those two once you— especially with startups.

Yeah.

So when you're, when you're working with people, do you, do you find that it's a cross between— is it often combined or are you, are you able to separate that a little bit more?

No, it's always across, right? However, clients don't necessarily identify that right away. So that's part of the consultation where I help them to identify that, you know, their personal lives is really the foundation of how they would be able to execute professionally. And so we probably get into that pretty quickly in the first session, just about how important it is for their foundation to be solid. solid in order for, you know, other things to really manifest professionally. Right.

And mindset's a huge thing. I've, I've interviewed other people about mindset. If you talk to any startup entrepreneur person, it's all about mindset. What are, in your experience and when you're helping people, what are some of the areas that you see as really important You know, to focus on? You know, there's so, there's so much we could talk about when we talk about mindset and, and your outlook on things. Like, what are your key, you know, couple things where you go, these are, these are really important to have, you know, put effort towards if you're, if you're going to start somewhere? Where, where would that be?

Yeah, so there's a concept that I introduced to my clients called the Breakup Series, and What I empower them to do is to be able to break up with fear, procrastination, and the opinions of others. I have found over the years that those 3 focus areas are probably the most common themes that I hear consistently. Those, those are the things that have caused people to become stuck, right? They're unable to really just move forward. They become neutralized. You know, they're unable to actually execute. on their goals. And, um, and so being able to really identify those 3 common themes have helped me to really help my clients even more. Because, um, you know, with fear, it's just gonna cause us, you know, it's like staring at a train wreck. Like, you literally can't move, right? And then procrastination, which actually was something I had to overcome, and sometimes it creeps back up, but—

Yeah.

Procrastination definitely It's something, you know, that people have to break up with. You know, we cannot, uh, continue to not move towards the things that we are, uh, pushing to the side. What you find is that when you go after those things, that's what you should have been going after anyway, right? It's never as bad as you thought. It's never going to take as much energy as you thought. It's going to be better. Um, and then the opinions of others, you know, we live in this—

Right.

saturated culture of, you know, social media and imagery and all of that. And so people have a tendency to compare themselves and also to allow the opinions of others to really impede their forward movement. So those would be the 3 primary, I would say.

Yeah, I feel like, you know, fear and procrastination would get talked about a lot, especially in the business. Like, I don't know any entrepreneur Or startup owner that hasn't had to deal with those things. So I feel like that's just like across the board, no matter if you look, you know, look super successful, you still are probably dealing. And I totally get procrastination always somehow manages to rear its head, even in my life. It just pops up every now and then. I'm like, oh, doing that again.

Yeah, it does. All of it. And it's not a one and done thing, right? That's why mindset has a lot to do with awareness. Right? You just have to be conscious of what your triggers are, what are the things that continue to pop up, and also conscious of what stories are you telling yourself, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, oftentimes those stories have no foundation, or they're really rooted in something that has happened previously in your life. And so what we see is the fruit of some other root that we have to get to and identify.

Yeah, yeah, that's very, very true. I think it's great that you mentioned, you know, the opinion of others. I think that's a huge— I have kids, so I'm very aware of a whole different world for opinions of others and how many opinions we all get on a daily basis. Oh my goodness. Which is, I don't know. I don't know how I would've been a kid today.

I agree.

It seems way harder. So, but it's so true for, you know, people in business too. Like we kind of think about this like, oh, well, we're adults, we're fine. And it's not, and it's not true. We're not able to just ignore those things. As easily as, as we sometimes believe we can, I think. Um, so, you know, when you're back to like how you work, right? So you start working through those areas, right? Those are your— you're gonna find so much there. So that's, you know, a long time. That's gonna be a long time continuing.

Unpacking, unpacking.

So long. Uh, and, and in a good way, in a good way. It's always upward movement. Is there— when you're doing that, are there other areas that will typically pop up or that you find are attached to those that are, you know, I guess this next tier of things that we— you start to unpack?

Yeah.

And what's your process? Like, how do you go through— I know everybody has has a little bit of a different process. So I'd love to kind of piece apart how, how you approach things and what's— yeah, what your unique approach— because we all need, we all need a unique approach. There's no one-size-fits-all for this kind of thing.

No, definitely. And it takes work, right? I make that very clear up front with my clients. Like, this is not just sessions where we just talk. Like, you're gonna have homework and You know, you're gonna have to go away and do some things. And one of those activities, right, or takeaways post-work that clients get is to— which is part of the process overall— is to sort of journal or list the things that they've been tolerating, right?

Mm-hmm.

So the concept around tolerating is that you're, you know, you're literally putting up with things that could potentially impact other areas of your life, right? So for example, One time I did the activity myself, right? Realized that I was kind of tolerating having a messy car, right? And I spent a lot of time on the road traveling back and forth facilitating. And what I didn't realize is that I'm not the kind of person that can work in chaos, right? I'm not— chaos and junk makes me anxious, right? And so I'm spending 4 hours in my car every day in this chaos, right?

Right.

So it was causing anxiety for me. I was not at peace once I did get home. And, you know, it was time to cook dinner and see my family. I, I just couldn't relax, right? Because I just spent 2 hours driving, you know, commuting, and the chaos in my car was making me anxious. So I was tolerating that. And so when you were able to, you know, identify the things that you're tolerating that you can control, Right, because there's a lot that we cannot control. But the things that you can control, you list those, and then we tackle really creating some goals where we can minimize, you know, those particular items. And the other one is really identifying— I mentioned stories that we tell ourselves, right? So identifying, you know, the times that self-sabotage is really, you know, rearing its ugly head. Because oftentimes you are really talking yourself out of whatever, right? And some— most of the time it's not other people, you're talking yourself out of it, right? And so how do we then build your confidence? Well, how do we then put things in place where even, you know, your morning routine, perhaps that needs to change, perhaps that needs to be adjusted so that your confidence level is what it should be when you have to tackle a particular project or meeting or whatever it is. And so that's a little bit of the process. But the toleration worksheet or activity is very powerful. There has never been a time where my clients have not come back and said, oh my goodness, I'm tolerating all of this. I'm a mess. But at the end of the day, Everybody's a mess, so it's okay. But as long as you have awareness, that's the key, right? And you gotta have some awareness. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's super important. Like, this whole— it kind of seems like culturally we're getting to a point where we're saying, okay, we should all be aware more and, you know, aware of what we're doing to impact other people, but also what's impacting us, because there's a There's a lot, like you said, there's a lot of tolerating and just coasting at tolerating, and it's not—

Right.

Not really helpful. And even, you know, the startups and people that I talk to on my business end when I do work, a lot of it is people just become aware. They're like, oh, I realize now that this product is being thrown away and it's plastic and it's going to the ocean. So now I'm gonna fix it. So it's just, it's just aware. And I feel like it's kind of across, it's been growing across the board. So like personal aspects, like what you work with, the sustainability and becoming aware of what we're doing to the planet is just, we're starting to level up, which makes a lot of work. That is one thing it's doing is giving us a lot of work to do. But at the same point, we need to. So it's good. It's all leveling us, but I definitely— it feels that way. And I don't know if you can— if that— what your thoughts are on that, like what you're seeing kind of just in your network. And you do a lot of events and you do speaking. So kind of what— I guess what would be your 10,000-foot read of what are the trends you see and what's kind kind of shaping what's getting people to do this?

Well, I think people are— they desire change to happen, right? It's been this lull of time where we were tolerating a lot of things. And people have really come to identify that, you know what, I do have a stake in this, I do have a level of responsibility for this. And I actually can make an impact. I actually do have influence, right? So people have realized this, uh, for, you know, a myriad of reasons. And so now people are like taking action. But I think, um, you know, over— even during like the pandemic, like over the last couple of years, you're right, there has definitely been an uptick in people becoming more aware. Might have a lot to do with people just Having to be still, right? We could not go anywhere.

There's nothing like being forced to sit in a chair. Timeout from the world does have an impact.

Right. And we were, we were sort of forced to face a lot of things, right, that we were kind of ignoring and sort of glazing over with our rose-colored glasses. And so then we were forced to face these things. And so now people want change. And I think that's what we're seeing, that there's going to be consistently, you know, a lot of change and a lot more awareness happening.

Yeah, I think a good point you brought up is, is people are realizing that they can do something, because that's definitely been— we can, we can point at environmental issues as, well, what am I going to do, right? I'm just one person. And I think that's a good point is it does, it does seem like people are more— it's clicking in how you can do something like, yes, you do, you do make an impact. And maybe it's, maybe it's because we all sat alone for a long time and realized that we can, we can do a lot by ourselves. I don't know. Maybe, maybe, who knows? I'm sure there's some psychologists and sociologists debating that right now on what actually happened to us all.

They're creating a study right now. Yeah, absolutely.

But, but it does feel like that. It very, it very much is that I can actually do something, which is— and there's, there was more, I think it was a record number of new businesses started in 2020.

Yeah.

Like, it's— people are taking— and always in a downturn, there's always an uptick in new businesses. So anytime there's an economic crash, but it was more than that. It was more than just a downturn. So a lot of people are starting to take action to do Yeah, something, uh, which is, which is great.

People also realize, like, it doesn't mean you have to do something big. Like, you know, yeah, the misconception, right, people have that, oh, well, if I'm not creating another Facebook, then I, you know, if I'm not, you know, creating a way, right, you know, no, it's, it's the small incremental, you know, changes and efforts that are really sort of having this snowball effect where we can see some larger you know, impact and change. And so I think that has a lot to do with it too.

Yeah, and I— it's just a personal theory, but I think one of the things that happened when the whole world shut down is that we realized we can do something. Like, we all collectively decide, well, we were able to shut the world down in a matter of weeks. That's not a feat that anything could have actually— you know, you could Well, a war has started and the world has not shut down. So like, that, that is a feat of humanity to pull that off in a short amount of time. It's not, not something that we'd ever experienced in generations of— that I know ever, for the big impact. So that— and that was just a bunch of people taking little tiny steps themselves.

Yeah.

So it's like One of my theories is just kind of clicked in our brains, like, oh, look, look what we can do. We can do something. Now maybe we should apply it to something other than shutting down the economy. We can go fix something, right? We proved it works. Now let's go do, do something even better for everyone.

Totally. I feel like we got— we became a little more human again too, right? Is this because there was definitely also an increase in people just wanting to be helpful, right? To want, want to actually create ways for people's lives to be easier, right? To give back, to feed the hungry, to clothe those that are without, and to, you know, do things like that. And so there, um, has definitely been— there was one night, true story, like one of the things I, I do also in the spare time is, right, feed the hungry. So Mm-hmm. We traveled around the city maybe for 2 hours, and where we knew the pockets, you know, homelessness was, right? People had already eaten. There were already like 3 other organizations that came to the areas where they were to feed them, and they were turning us away. They, they're like, oh no, we're good.

That's great. That's great though. I mean, that's winning, right? And for that. Yeah.

And I've never seen that ever before. I've been doing that for years and that's never been— I've never heard of that. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I feel like there's nothing like a little bit of human isolation to make you appreciate humans again. And then want to go help. Like, I know what you're going through because I'm not feeling great either.

So let's band together. Come together, let's just, you know, sing Kumbaya.

Just, yeah, whatever it takes. We're, we're within arm's distance now instead of 10 feet away waving across the fence in hazmat suits.

Yeah, way away. Yeah.

Well, so when you're back to what you do, helping people through this, uh, and, and coaching people, what are Who do you work with? Like, what, what's an ideal client for you? Who can you really help? Who do you resonate with, uh, when you work together?

Yeah, definitely. So, uh, I would say about 40% of my clientele are small businesses, uh, small business owners, right? And so what I've been able to do for them is actually work with either, um, as a coach for, you know, the owners, or coming in to actually do some leadership development for their staff. Um, my second, yeah, percentage, largest percentage of clients are, um, women. So, you know, women who are, you know, at the point in their lives where they are ready for change and a shift is happening and they're just trying to figure things out. And so, yeah, that was— that's my 2 greatest populations.

Perfect. Well, those are both high-need, high-need populations for sure. I work with enough startups and, and, uh, I have daughters, I have a wife, I have sisters. Definitely, definitely all can benefit from some good coaching. It's helped them. So yeah, need more, need more coaches in that space for sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

Perfect. So just to, just to wrap up, Uh, for anybody that's really wanting to get into this, I know you do obviously the one-on-one coaches. You said some corporate level on small scale, and you also do, uh, speaking as well. Is there— do you speak for corporate? What's your— do you have a circuit that you do? Where, where, where can people find you, get in touch with you? See what you're doing, join you.

Yeah, definitely. So, uh, my keynotes have definitely been by invitation. So it is a myriad of opportunities. A lot of them have been at colleges and universities, you know, speaking to the student population. It's about either keeping their momentum, um, a lot of requests to speak to students about mindset shifts, the growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Certainly, I've been invited to a lot of faith-based communities to talk, you know, to parishioners just about, you know, having perseverance and resilience, right, in uncertain times, and really bringing some of this practical knowledge around awareness and really growth personally and professionally to faith-based communities, because oftentimes it's not necessarily something that's discuss, right? Um, so that's been really powerful, um, and really rewarding there. Um, and, you know, anyone that wants to connect, also facilitate, right, these mastermind sessions on a monthly basis where anybody from the community can, you know, go to my website, sign up to attend. Um, it is a, uh, you know, a wide variety of topics and discussions, uh, generally for about 90 minutes happening on the 3rd Saturday of every month. And so it is an opportunity for people to come. And really what I've titled the sessions for this year is to pursue 2K22. And so we are discussing, you know, what personal elements and what sort of mindset strategies and shifts need to happen so that we can be successful and to not become stuck. And that website is themasterpieceproject.com.

Awesome. Well, we'll make sure in the description notes for anybody listening, all your links. We'll make sure you're easy to get a hold of. And perfect, you work with people in so many different ways, so that is great. It makes it, uh, convenient for everyone who, who can get, get working with you. So awesome.

Well, Absolutely.

Well, I'm so, I'm so glad that we were able to chat. It's been great talking to you about, about this. This is a very important subject for anybody doing anything, so pretty much everybody. There's— if you, if you find yourself not believing you fit into the need coaching category, then you should see a coach about that. And, uh, well, yeah, this has been really great. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Thank you. Yeah, same here. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Ian.

All right, thanks, girl.

All right, take care. Bye-bye.