Brave Biz Labs - 3rd October 2025

Good morning, Jennifer, are you there? Can you hear me? Hello? Jennifer? Hello? Is it me? Am I the problem? Hello?

Hi.

How are you?

I'm doing okay.

Yeah.

How are you?

Oh, I'm good. Are you and your husband both?

We are.

Are you working still or.

That is minute by minute. He is. His agency has funding for another month.

Okay.

And mine is out. Okay.

Right now I am not getting paid. That is really fucking dumb.

Yep.

It's no way to run a railroad, as my grandfather would say. No way to run a railroad, as my grandfather would say. Yeah, we'll see. As of right, today is my. Probably my last day off. I will most likely be going in starting next week and just working for free. Okay. Because, you know, why not?

Why not?

Why not, you know, serve a government I love so much right now? Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's what's going on.

Yep. Well, thank you, Service.

For my volunteer work.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Well, what are you celebrating today?

Been through more than one of these, and at least for the first time today I can say at least I'm not in the office working away anyway, so there's that. So. Yeah, I've been watching Game of Thrones.

Hey.

No, this morning I was like, wow, this looks really familiar.

Who knew?

Some really good lines in here? I might have to write some of these down. Ah.

Oh, man. Yeah. Okay. Wow.

What's on your shoulder? Are you. Are you packing today or.

Oh, no.

Yeah, I was like. I was trying to make a new outfit, and I don't know if it works. Here, I'll show you. I have, like, these velvet, red velvet pants that I was like, these will be cozy today. And then I pair it with this. And I was like, it needs something darker on top to balance it. Any jackets that worked with this top? And I was like, this. And I honestly, if this were shorter, it would work long. And I think it looks kind of dumb, but it looks fine if you can only see me from, like, boobs up.

So I think it looks lovely. It's like she got a holster. What's going on?

What's Katie up to today?

Oh, my.

Gosh.

Oh, man. Well, I actually. I had a little training kind of.

Prepared, but I mean, good, because I don't have questions.

Great. Yeah.

Well, not questions you can answer anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

Fair.

Fair.

Yeah.

No, I had a really great question from one of my followers on Substack about how do you get people to book calls and how do you tell people, like, in the middle of a random ass conversation, to book a sales call? With you?

Yeah.

How do you do that?

Oh, good question.

Yeah. So I wanted to walk through, you know, that kind of scenario and explain it. And then if you don't mind, if someone else, if more people join, then I'll explain it to them too. I feel like every time our government takes a hit, like, attendance drops.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it's. It's really interesting.

That is, I, I want to hear all of your observations. That's a really interesting one because.

Yeah, I think people withdraw and they are afraid to build, you know, and it's like they, they need to recover because I had person on BYOB on, on Wednesday.

I was gonna be there, but I had to go in and deal with chaos. So.

Fair.

But that was the plan.

All right. But anyway, if you don't mind, I will explain it to them when they join because I think, of course, for people to know.

Yeah, of course.

Let's play out a scenario. You're at a friend's barbecue and, you know, you have a plate full of full, like, chips and a half eaten hot dog and some, you know, potato salad. And you're talking to someone and their kids screaming over here. And like, you're laughing and joking and someone starts talking about what's going on for them at work. And they kind of know what you do. Like you, they've asked like, what do.

You do for work?

And you're like, well, I, you know, I'm an executive coach, blah, blah, blah. And they start saying like, oh, my God, like this is going on and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we have this problem and this problem, and I'm really struggling with this. So, like, you have your ideal client right in front of you. They're saying all the right things.

The.

Problems they're talking about. You're like, oh, my God, I want to help you. Please, please, please, I really want to help you with that. I love that stuff. The instinct is to try to go into coaching mode right in that moment, right. And to try to like, help them solve it right in that moment. Right. Which is helpful. Ish. But honestly, they're never going to act on any advice given to them in a barbecue, right. It's like someone saying, oh, you know, I have this weird rash on my knee, you know, to someone who's a doctor at a party. And the doctor, like, getting down on the floor and be like, well, show me. You know, the doctor can't prescribe anything. It's not like the doctor can't help in any real significant way, right? But the doctor could say, you know, hey, I actually am a dermatologist and that's what I do for work. Here's my card. If you want to book an appointment this week, just, just call my receptionist. Right. And so, you know, as a coach, as, as a consultant, as, you know, whoever is watching this, when someone starts talking in your ideal client speak and you kind of clock them, you're like, oh, my God, like, this is the person I want to work with. What you say instead is, you know, that's so funny you say that because that's exactly what I work on with my clients. You know, if you ever want help with that, then we can book a time to talk, like later this week. And you, and you offer it and if they say, oh my God, yes, then you pull out your phone and you, you know, see when you have available and you give them a couple options and you ask for their phone number and their email address and you send them the calendar invite and say, yeah, I'll call you. Then we'll talk through it. And then you go back to like the barbecue talk. You know, if they're like, oh, that might be something to look at in the future, you say, okay, cool, like, here's. Do you want my information? You can reach out when you're ready.

Okay. Since I can't write as fast as you talk, say it again. That's so funny you say that because that's exactly what I work with my clients on. If you ever want.

Yeah, if, if you ever want to talk about it, you know, I'm happy to hop on a half hour call with.

And you wait to see what they say.

Yeah. And then you say, would you want to, would you want to talk this week sometime? And you just feel out like people who are like, really desperate for help, they'll be like, oh my God, yeah, I would love, I would love to people who are like, oh, I'm good. Like, you're going to see them kind of withdraw and then you just move on. You don't make it weird. You don't try to sell them anything. You don't try to do non consensual coaching.

Very, very non consensual coaching.

Yeah. I have a friend that. And we've kind of drifted because of this. She and I went to coach training school together and became friends. And I realized, like, that's how she relates to people now. She only coaches. And sometimes when you're on the phone with a friend, you don't like, you don't want to be coached. You want her to agree that the other person's an. And it's like, it's really hard. And she hasn't, no matter how many times I ask her to stop doing it, she still does it. So I've kind of withdrawn from the friendship. So we want to, we want to be careful not to do that.

Yep, very fair.

But someone who's really interested what their follow up questions will be is, oh my God, like, what do you do with your clients? And then here's the next thing you have to be careful of is your tendency, and I say this to you, Jennifer, and to anyone who's watching this recording, because this is relevant to everyone, will be to explain your process and explain how you work with clients. And as you're explaining, you're gonna see them disappear behind their eyeballs because they don't understand what the fuck you're talking about. And as soon as they can finish their beer enough to justify going to get another one, they will. So instead what you want to do is you want to tell the story of a client who is similar to them. And you don't have to violate any privacy stuff, any confidentiality. You can just say, you know, I had this one client who was struggling with this and this and this, and you list off the symptoms. And then you talk about their goal. And they really, really wanted to get here. They really, really wanted to do this. And when we worked together, we discovered that the root problem that they were actually struggling with was. I am pausing so you can write thank you. And here's the key phrase you're going to say after this. That's going to tell them that you are worth every dollar of how expensive you are. You ready? And so I designed a bespoke or customized experience for them to solve that.

Problem.

And get to their goal. And now here's where they are. This tells people that everyone's core problem might be different, right? So any follow up questions they have, like, oh my God, well, what would you do with this? You can say, well, you know, it really depends. Like I, I don't know until I start working with.

Right?

So it's a way for you to set a boundary around not giving your service away for free. And it also builds up the value of having that conversation with you.

And.

Build the value of the service that you would offer on the other side of that conversation. Because you're not just selling a PDF, right? You're saying, hey, listen, like, you know, this client had very similar issues to you, right? We figured out the root problem was this. And they may say, oh, my God, I think that's my problem too. You can say, yeah, it might be, you know, it might be also something else. You know, it really depends. Like, there's, there's so many things that go into this, but for this client, you know, because that was their root problem, I created like a whole program for them to follow so that they could solve these things and then get to their goal. And here's where they are now. You know, the great example of this is when is if you're going to talk to like a really, really well known personal trainer, you know, they don't, they don't sit there and show you the workout plan that they did for Dwayne the Rock Johnson. They don't show you, here's what, like all the reps and how much weight they do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's their nutrition. They say, oh, cool. Well, you know, he came to me as this. He walked away as this. We designed a whole program to help him get to the goal of being in shape for this movie. You know, and this is what you see at the movie. You know, your goals are probably a little different. And, you know, I help my. I create a customized workout schedule and nutrition plan for my clients based on.

Their goals.

Which is very true.

Yeah.

I mean, anyone who's worth their weight is doing that.

Yep, Yep. But it creates that barrier. If someone wants your help, it's obvious that they have to sign up for it. It's obvious that they have to book a call. You're not just like someone who does this as a hobby and talks about it at barbecues and offers free coaching. And that way you only get people who are actually serious about potentially working with you, booking time with you.

Okay. Yeah.

Questions?

Yeah, when you're ready.

Yeah, I don't want to interrupt you if there's more.

Yeah.

So this feels like I should have a couple of stories in my pocket. A couple of client stories. What about the ones that. A couple things with that. What about the. If you're not there yet or they didn't get this, like ultimate client. I mean, if you're rather, if you're newer in the process.

How do you.

Craft the story when you don't have that, you know, the rock outcome.

Yeah. So I think one of the things you have to give yourself credit for is it's not just stories of proper clients that you have helped. Right. Like, you've also helped people in your job. Right. And you can say, oh, well, I worked with this One person, you don't necessarily have to say they were a client.

Very true.

You know, they had this problem, this problem. We realized this was the core thing and we, I developed this program and, or developed this thing that they needed to work on, And here's where they are now. Like, you've been having impact in helping people for years. I guarantee you, once you start making a list, you'll have a good dozen. You know, you can also go with the well, typically kind of model. You can say, well, typically my clients come to me when they have this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem. And when you say problems, you're actually talking about symptoms. But we're not using like, that's, that's behind the scenes terminology. So that's what we talk about when we're talking about your marketing with your clients. You're just calling like, all the symptoms are problems. And then you say, you know, and in the beginning of our work, it's really delving into what's actually causing those problems. Because, because, you know, we can deal with the, the surface area stuff, the surface level stuff, but if we don't get to the root cause, they're still going to come back. So the first part of me working with people is about digging in and trying to figure out what the root of the problem is. And then based on what that root is, I develop a whole program for them. Let me know when you're ready. There's more. And then you go. And then typically the goal they're working towards is, is this. They want to make more money. They want more time with their spouse. They want to be able to travel more. They want to be able to turn off their phone when they're not at work.

Yeah, I think I forget going back to the first point, I do forget that it doesn't have to be just the people who are in front of me right now. Yeah, I need to go back and make that list.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, if I were to be honest about the amount of people that I have helped start businesses, it goes back to when I was 17. I helped my boyfriend, who was a few years older than me, start a landscaping business that's still successful today, you know, but like, I, you know, but that's, that wasn't my coaching, you know, but I helped him with a bunch of stuff, with confidence building, with understanding how to like, have conversations with people about getting. And this is before I even did sales, you know, like helping him see how he can have a conversation that would end up with a client you know, connecting him with different resources, like my dad, who's a carpenter, you know, and my dad gave him, you know, resources and advice that I wouldn't have known, but I knew that that would be a good resource for him.

Get in the Wayback Machine. What's that said?

Get.

Go for a ride in the Wayback Machine.

Right.

Yeah, I've been doing that for a long time.

Yeah. I bet you even have, you know, friends from high school who you helped.

Probably.

Yeah.

Kind of a loner. So.

You didn't talk to anyone ever?

I was a brooder, just like Jon Snow.

Oh, my God, I could totally see he's, like, a goth. So not.

My skin is too pale.

And black lipstick and dyed black hair and, like, really heavy eyeliner.

Yeah, yeah, you can. I would really look like the walking dead at that point. Yeah, it's a good point. Like, there are lots of. I think that is one of my core challenges is I'm struggling with that, like, symptoms, problem situation. I'm still, like. I get so deep into the tactics, so deep into the weeds, and. And at the same time, so, like, I can't seem to hit that middle where somebody will say, you know, I can never get to meetings on time. And I'm immediately like, okay, so one of your 12 executive function challenges is you have time management problems. Or maybe it's a. You know, I'm literally walking through that list and then coming at the strategies and whatnot. I'm already filling in the Alphabet as I think of it, and I really am struggling to pull that back and put it in layman's terms in symptoms and problems.

Yeah.

Yeah, struggling with that.

But.

Okay, so. But, like, let's back it up to what they just said. They're struggling to get to meetings on. On time. So what other symptoms might that cause? They might be on a pip. They might have had some really, like, awful conversations with their direct manager. They might have heard rumors about themselves from other teams that they don't take things seriously, that they're. That they're disorganized and all this stuff.

They.

You know what, that just. Sorry.

They might actually be the person who gets the most done. And they're late to the meeting because they're following up from the last meeting, making sure all the boxes are. Are checked, and they're starting to get frustrated that no one's seeing this. All they're seeing is that they're coming, like, seven minutes late to the meeting.

Right.

You can still start thinking about all the things that you would do with them and work with them on. But you want to kind of stay with like, what, like what are the ripples from this one rock that's fallen in the water?

And it. When you were saying that made me think about it in terms of like the lateral ripples instead of the trickle effect.

Yeah.

Sort of the lateral. Like the things that you were describing is. Is the scene of what's going around. Right. People are talking about them. They have a pip. It's not so much the. The latter effects.

Right.

And I need to stay in that space and really create that. Create that picture.

Right.

Like your business of ferrets thing that you talked about with, with Freyman, the other. With Dave Fryman the other day, like a whole story about this, these, this ferret. I get it. Believe me, I get it. And just like what that picture looks like. And not just the next day scene and the next day scene and the follow on to it. I have to create the set that scene first.

Right. You know, have you ever seen that show? Love it or list it?

Yes.

Okay. So, you know, her whole thing is she wants to make the house better for them so that they stay in it. Right. The first thing she goes in and she. And says is like, okay, well, what do you want different? She. But what she's really hearing is, what do you hate about this right now? What are the things you absolutely hate that we need to fix right away to make you want to stay here? Right. It's less like, yeah, she's listening for what they want, but what they want is usually just not this, you know, And. And she goes into like. Because, I mean, it's a project. It is literally, we're fixing this thing. She goes into.

Cool.

So what I'm hearing you say is you want it to be more like this, Right. She doesn't go into right away like, oh, we're gonna have to take down this wall and blah, blah. She gets there eventually, you know. And of course, like, this is already a client of her. She wouldn't be coming in here and doing this assessment, whatever. But, you know, she then has to go and create a plan she has to engineer. She has to talk to the carpenter, she has to talk to the roofer, You know, for. And she also normalizes it. Oh, I can see how that would be really frustrating. Oh, yeah. For you. When your clients, hi, Margaret. When you're. When someone's talking to you and saying, oh, my God, I have this problem, you know, I'm always late to meetings, you can say, oh, a Lot of my clients struggle with that before they work with me. That's it. You just normalize the fuck out of them. You know, instead of them being embarrassed that they're always late to these meetings and that they're on a pip and that all the stuff is happening, you can say, yeah, like, that's a really common issue that my clients deal with also. And without being too pushy or obvious about it, what you're telling them is like, you're not a problem. Like, the issue you have is not unique. A lot of people struggle with that. Like. Like, you don't have to be so hard on yourself. And also, you're talking to the right person because I literally have clients or I've worked with people who have that problem.

That's it.

You know, a lot of my content around selling is about how people are afraid to sell and how when they get to the point in the conversation where they have to ask someone to be. Be their client or tell them how much they charge, like, they kind of chicken out and they. And they panic and they say, okay, well, why don't I do this? Why don't I send you an email with some details? And then they hang up and they're like, okay, now I have to send them the email. And then the email has to be so perfect. And then when they send it, they feel like they're going to vomit. Am I teaching them anything about how to run a sales call? Am I telling them the process of how I teach my clients how to run a sales call? What am I doing?

If you're describing this example, you mean. Yeah, I think I. Oh, yeah, you're just, you know, it's gonna. It's like, yeah, you've seen this before.

I've done this before.

I know it's coming.

Not my first rodeo. Yeah, yeah. You know, but if you're in that position, you do that. Oh, my God. Like, not the only one. Oh, okay, cool. So that's why I'm not getting clients. Ah, okay. I didn't realize that was wrong. You know, you call it wrong without telling them it's wrong, and you're describing the feelings around it too. You know, Jennifer, you could talk about that sinking feeling that they get in their gut when they realize, oh, my God, I'm five minutes late and my boss is on this call. What's my excuse that they're gonna buy at this point? You know? And then, like, they have to act calm on this call while they're looking at the face, you know, on the Screen of their boss, who in their head they're making up, the boss is, like, planning how to fire them. You know, you talk about that, that knot they get in their gut, how their palms are sweaty, how like. Like all of a sudden they get asked a question, they kind of panic because they, like, weren't paying attention because they were in their head, so freaked out that their boss might be Ma.

Did it just be that I'm out of practice? Like, I used to be really good at this stuff.

What do you mean?

Like, setting that, like, describe. I'm that type of person. If you've ever read the thinking of Game of Thrones, if you've ever read one of the novels, George R.R. martin's novels, have you read one of them? They're so heavy detail, like, to the point where I'm like, okay, George, let's move on here. I don't need to know which strands of hair are gray.

Right.

I can be that level of detail. I can get into that level. And I used to do that all the time. And now I find myself, myself. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you've got time management problems and you've got, you know, just going to that. What happened to that? Just. Am I just out of practice? Because I haven't been living in that space for so long. I've been living in the. Here's the problem. Here's the very analytical space.

No, I think the problem is, is that you've been doing it in your job.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Like, yeah, but, like, efficiency is. Is the name of the game in your job because you've already been the client, essentially. Yeah, right. Like the people you work with are essentially your clients. You know, when you're marketing, you just have to zoom it back to, like. Like all the feelings and sensations that they have in that moment when these problems are coming up. And Margaret, we started off this conversation, I was doing a little training on how, like, when you come across your ideal client in the real world, in, like, a social situation, how. How do you get them to a call? You know, how do you invite them to book a sales call with you? Do you sell them right there, all this stuff? And what I find works really well is that as they're describing the issues they have, you can say, oh, you know, it's so funny. I actually, that's exactly what I work on with my clients, you know, and then if they're like, oh, really? Like, and they seem interested, you can say, yeah, like. Like, obviously we Won't talk about it now. But like, if you, if you are curious about, you know, what I do, you know, I'm happy to set up a 30 minute call with you this week and if they seem interested, you say, great. Like, and then you take out your phone and you find some times and you offer them and you get their email and their phone number, you send them the calendar invite and say, great, I can't wait to talk to you then. And then you move on with the conversation. Easy peasy.

Yeah.

You know this.

I do, but I, I don't feel like I have amazing success with it. I think sometimes I, I over calibrate, you know, a little into like being confident. I'm like, oh yeah, I totally do that. That's what I, you know, I, I don't know, I think I need to. Yes. Just make it like a two minute part of the conversation. Like, oh, are you interested in exploring this or not? It just asking for permission rather than. Yeah, yeah, yeah, crossing that line a little bit.

Yeah. And it's even in the language. Like, are you interested in exploring this? Might even come across a little aggressive in a social situation. Right, right. It's like, oh, would you want to talk about that?

Right.

You want it to be a little more flexible.

Yeah. Give them a really comfortable out if they want it.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because you don't want them to feel like, oh my God, I was just sharing something. Now I'm, I'm being sold, you know, at this barbecue that I'm at. Right, right.

Yeah.

It was like, oh, well, if you ever want to talk about that, you know, you want to book a time to call and then, and then the beginning of that, you just have to be very, very intentional with setting the agenda, you know, and you might tweak it a little bit. You might say, okay, cool. So I know at the, at the barbecue you were talking about this and that's kind of what we want to talk about. Want to dive into that a little bit with you. And then, you know, like, I do do this with clients. So like, if you're curious about working with me at the end, I'll check in with you and if you want to learn about that, we can talk about it. But you know, like, let's have a conversation about what's going on. You're not actually coaching them in that call, but what you're doing is you're helping them kind of identify what the root of the problem is.

Right back to our sale. I mean, the anatomy of a sales Call lots of questions.

Yeah, exactly. And then you can help them identify also what is the thing that they would want instead of, you know, and then you just kind of normalize as you go through. Oh, yeah, that's really common. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's really normal for. For the stage of career you're in or for someone who has this kind of situation going on. Yeah. Because, I mean, that in itself is valuable, right? That in itself, even if they don't work with you, they'll get off the phone and be like, oh, my God, I'm not. I'm not a freak. There's nothing inherently wrong with me. I'm not broken. And now I kind of understand what I need to work on. Right. And they may end up coming back later and be like, okay, like, I've been trying to work on this on my own. I have no idea what I'm doing. Can we talk about working together? You know, but oftentimes they will say, yeah, I actually would love to hear about working with you. Yeah. What other. Any other questions on this?

Not on this. No. I do have a different question, but not on this.

Jennifer. Okay, Margaret, what's your question?

Yeah, and this is less. I was. I was in a final session with a client this week, and she's. She's done really well with the fundraising piece that also, you know, she's an executive director, and she's, you know, we've certainly gotten into some executive coaching as well. And she has one team member who. This is like, I'm just trying to think how to sort of bottom line this, but who is. Okay. This is really common in the nonprofit world that we hire people from the communities that we represent, which can mean that they have, you know, less than our Ivy League education, and it can mean that they come from different cultural backgrounds. And then we. And by which I certainly have been guilty of this when I supervise people, but, you know, she's super frustrated with this person because, you know, this woman doesn't write at her level. And part of this person's job description is to write the newsletter. And anyway, it's been an ongoing thing. And I'm getting to my question, which is I offered, like, to do a disc assessment of both of them, and then I gifted a meeting for the two of them to sort of talk through that lens. And anyway, we were kind of debriefing that a little bit at the session, and she shared with me, like, oh, my person said, you know, that, like, she just doesn't even want to bother anymore because I'm too picky. And I said, well, you know, that's. That's the impact of, like, stickler energy. And she just, like, she got really upset with me, and I'm just. Maybe it's like a coaching thing. And we've talked about this, you know, before, and she's like, I'm going to push back on you. And, you know, this is not my. You know, And I was like, oh, my God, it's our last session. Like, I don't even know how we. How we ended up here, but, like, in the end, it just felt icky. And she didn't want to do a testimonial. Like, I don't know. I just feel. And I. I think she didn't want to do a testimonial primarily because she wants to keep it confidential that she was working with a coach. I mean, I don't think it was that she thought that I, you know, that I fucked something up, but I just. I could use some help, like, processing it, so. Not how I ever want to leave things.

Yeah.

I mean, this is honestly the hard thing about coaching is that sometimes that's the coaching.

Right.

You know.

I've. I've had several conversations with my clients where I had to hold a mirror up to them and say, hey, listen. Like, my job is to hold a mirror up so that when something's in your control to fix, even if it's a problem you're creating and it's uncomfortable for you, my job is to hold that mirror up so you can see it.

Yeah, that would have been a good thing to say. But she was. I mean, really, she was. I mean, you know, quickly you get like this. She's not gonna go there with me right now, no matter how much, you know, truth I pull out.

Let me finish. So.

Oh, sorry.

No, no, it's okay.

Yeah.

And sometimes, like, even knowing that they're still pissed, they still don't want to hear it. They're like, it just, like, it hits them in the wrong way at the wrong time, and they're not happy about it. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a text, like, a week later, you're right. Or, okay, I see what you mean now. You know, even a few months later, like, it just, like something happens that they're like, oh, okay. Like, I've gotten this feedback before. Right. You know, we all get defensive. There's not. There's not a human alive who doesn't get defensive in some way, shape or form. And as coaches like, we, like, we're helpers and healers. Right. And so we want people to walk away feeling good from our sessions. That's not going to happen all the time.

Not always the impact and.

And that's often what's best for our clients. Yeah, Right. You know, if you ever say the wrong, say something that genuinely hurts their feelings. You know, that's something you design early on in the design alliance of, like, please tell me and I will clean it up. But in the design alliance, you can say, you know, sometimes I'm going to hold a mirror up to you and you're not going to like it. Right. And that, I mean. Yeah. And that's part of the work is looking at parts of yourself that you don't like. And we. We look at why you don't like it and what meaning you're attaching to that and. And so on and so forth.

Yeah. But I like. I like the mirror language. I mean, I say something ish, but I like the specificity of that.

Right. You know, the other side of this is like, we. We have no control around what our clients find helpful or useful. Right. I can't tell you how many times I'm shocked at the end of this call when I ask everyone to go around and say, you know, what's your main takeaway? Cause sometimes I'm like, God, I had no idea that was a useful thing that I said. Or we didn't even talk about that subject. It's wild that your brain was doing this thing over here while the conversation went over there. And, like, you pulled this out of that and. And that's what you're taking away.

True. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we transitioned from there to a, you know, more. More of completion and acknowledgments. And, you know, I think she was able to say that, you know, she's. She's gotten some. Out of it. She gave me some really helpful feedback. And. But it was just a brutal, like, oh, my God, it's our last session. So I did pivot. I mean, I didn't. I didn't turn totally away from it. I mean, I feel okay with how I handled it. It was just like that moment of like. Like, really now, right now, this is when this is happening.

Right. And as your coach, I will reflect back to you. I think this is going to be a great lesson for you to not try to squeeze a second service and into the service you've already created. Right. Because you saw the impact, like, you saw, like, this disk assessment. This service really needed its own framework that you couldn't fit into this. Right. So I love that you were trying to give something extra to your client. And also, like, the takeaway I want for you is don't do that anymore.

Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of coaches include disc, but I guess if I'm going to include this, it has to start at the beginning, and we use it the whole time. I mean, it was just a little bit of like, oh, I have a tool. You know, I mean, this. This relationship with her employee came up over and over and over again. I'm like, well, you're a D and she's an F. I mean, before they ever took the assessment. And I'm like, there's. There's a lot that you can figure out from this. But anyway, that's great. That is great counsel. Like, either it's part of the engagement and you do it from the beginning or just leave it.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. Right. And I don't. Yeah. I'm sure she didn't clock like that. I gave them, you know, an extra hour, like, above and beyond. Sure. Didn't.

No.

Yeah. Careful. Careful with that. Give to get, Margaret. Doesn't always go so well.

I had. I had a client that I find right before the pandemic, I was coaching their entire leadership team within this marketing company, and the pandemic hit, and I was like, oh, my God, let me give them more. So I offered, like, a weekly support call for their whole staff to help process what was going on. And, like, like, literally doubled the amount of work I was doing for them. And the CEO, like, a year and a half later, reached out because he hadn't used two of his sessions and asked for a refund on those two. Did not clock that. I gave them, like, $15,000 worth of free coaching for what I was charging then.

Yeah.

You know, and of course, I, like, I didn't give them a refund. I explained, you know, you know, they, like, it was contracted for this time. You didn't use it. You know, there's no. There's no refunds at this point, you know, and it's just like, we're accounting for what we're giving. They're not.

Yeah. You know, I'm going on a total tangent, but I will bring it back. But my dad quit smoking. Like, he used to smoke three packs a day, literally, and then he just went cold turkey. But he said, you know, when you quit smoking, you have to do it, like, you decide once and then you have to actually quit, you know, 12 times, like, after every meal when you would have had a cigarette, and after sex, when you would reach for your pack on the nightstand after my dad did actually do. That's what he said to me, because he had no boundaries there. But anyway, like, that, you know, you're at a cocktail party, you have to quit again, you know, and. But it feels like that, like, that way of wanting to, like, give and think that it's gonna. I don't even know, like, what I think that it's gonna turn into. But, you know, I've, like, stopped doing it in this part of my life and that part of my life. But, like, damn it, I did it again, like, in this relationship. And it feels almost like it made things. Not almost, but a hundred percent, like it made things worse instead of.

I mean, but here's where I want to kind of redirect you with this, is your tendency just to give. Whereas instead of just giving, what you can say is, you can offer it. Hey, what I'm noticing is you're describing this problem. I'm hearing some stuff on there, and that I think there's a communication issue happening that would probably boil down to just how you guys operate. I do offer, like, another package that helps two people kind of go through it, understand their personality types and design, how they work better together. You know, if you were in that, we could add that onto your package, but we'd have a separate conversation. It's a separate service that I do. You know, it's its own thing. Yeah, right. And so it's like, you're offering it as an option. It's on the menu, but it's like, yeah, so, like, if you're at a restaurant and you're like, you know, oh, my God. Like, this steak is a little. Oh, God. What would be an example here? You might say, oh, my God. Like, these sides are so amazing with this steak. I really like it. I, you know, like, I, I, I would wish there was something that was slightly sweet, like you could bring out creamed corn for them. Right. But the restaurant wouldn't make any money. The person might not eat it. You know, they might not appreciate, Might not be exactly what they wanted. Right? So you could. But you could say, oh, you know, we actually have this really great creamed corn on the menu. Do you want me to put in an order for you? You know, and then if they say yes, then you do it, and if they say no, like, they don't like cream corn, great, you don't do it. So I offer that.

It's a serve.

It's not something that you have to buy extra, but you can take it, you know?

Yeah, no, I hear the yes. Yeah, there's a. I mean, yeah, like a childhood urge to, like. Right. Like a little. A little person urge to. And I can totally see the completely straight line in my brain.

Yeah.

About, like, why that was like a great plan as a five year old, and it's like less of a great plan right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's. It's funny. A lot of my clients, when they start, they're like, I need to give them a session every single week. I need to give my clients a session every single week. And I advise them against it, especially if they're in coaching. Cause, like, that's a lot of coaching for someone. I mean, like, that's. And then of course, there's homework in between, like, people. Like, I don't have time to metabolize what I got in a coaching call week over week. Like, I need. I need some breathing room. And what's funny is if they don't listen to me, I guaranteed two months later, they're like, these. These clients keep ghosting me. We do a couple sessions and then they never book again. And it's like, yeah, they're. They're at capacity. They can't do it.

Yeah.

So. So I want to. I want to acknowledge you for your generous spirit. And then I want to tell you to cut that out. Stop it.

Stop.

Did you ever see Elit of what's his face, who's a therapist?

He.

He played the dad in Elf. Like, the elf dad.

Oh, yeah. Who was his dad?

Bob. Bob Newhart. And. And it's like that. Okay, here it is. Stop it.

That's what I say to my dog. Knock it off.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It doesn't mean you're any less generous. It doesn't mean that you're. You're any less giving.

Yeah, no, this is so helpful to sort of look back and like. Yeah, okay, I see where that. It just switched the energy from the momentum that we had and it, like, started a new thing. Too late to start a new thing.

Yeah, totally. And you know what? Like, as. As folks who have delved deep into personal development and into healing, like, we can tend to project that on everyone else. You know, sometimes our clients are only wanting to go so far.

She was pretty. Pretty clear. So. Okay, fire her. Fire your. You know, that's your choice, too. Find a new place. Find a new person. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes the pattern has to repeat enough times that maybe or maybe not. Right. I mean, I can tell you there are plenty of people who. Not in this lifetime.

Yeah.

Are they going to get reflective? Yeah, yeah.

I had a non profit that asked me if I would do leadership development, like a day long session for them. And so I was like. And I don't typically do that these days, but I, I know the CEO and I know several people in there and you know, put together a proposal. And then they kept not getting back to me. I was like, I don't fucking care. Like, whatever, you guys get back to me. I'm not chasing this. And then the CEO reached out and they're like, well, what we think we want to do is we want to have you work with the millennials and the youngers so that they can better deal with the like, essentially the problem elders, the elders who are more stubborn and stuck in their ways because they've been with us for a really long time. And I was like, yeah, that's never going to fucking work. That's never gonna work. Like, you either have to do this with everyone or you're basically just gaslighting these poor people and teaching them how to tiptoe around trouble people.

Yeah. It would be like, here's a million dollar idea that we could all design as some equivalent of disc, but that is generational to teach people, oh, you're an M for millennial. Here's how you communicate. Here's. As opposed to the baby boomers, the Gen Xers, the gen Zers, like it's all different. Everybody's different. Different cultural.

Yeah. People are willing to get is different, you know.

Yeah. Well, if they ask you to do it again, Katie, and you want to co design that, I'm, I'm in. Jennifer, all three of us, we should, we should totally do it.

Yeah, totally. In all my free time. I will. Let me, let me know, I might.

Have some, I don't know.

Honestly, if you guys want to design it, go for it. You can take it. I'm good. Like it's yours.

But anyway, I love that. Actually.

Any final questions today? Any follow up to what we've talked about?

Okay, this is, this is definitely a three minute conversation. I'm just curious to roll this out and I'm talking myself through this. So I, I, I get all of, like, I need to go through all of the. Margaret, did you have anything else?

Because this is. No, I'm good, thank you. I'm complete.

I know you are. You're wonderful.

It's an inside joke. Because that's what in CTI you have to say complete before, after you make your statement so that people know that they can go.

It's you handing the talking stick to the next person.

It's a. It's a lame O coaching that is just unique to our school. Don't feel like you're an outsider. Sorry, continue.

But now, now, you know, so we can all use it.

Yeah, I was going to say now I'm. Now I'm on the inside. Thank you for bringing me into the baseball. Okay, so I know that there's like. If I sit down and were to really walk myself through this, I know there's a whole host of extraneous stuff that I'm going through right now. Yeah, we don't need to get into all of it. But there's a whole host of shit more than, like, even one of them at a time is enough. And I got them all coming at one time, so I get that that's extraneous. I'm just. Sometimes I'm just. I'm having this questioning of myself, like, do I even really want to do this anymore? You know? Do I really just. Maybe I should just put all my energy into getting a new 9 to 5 that's going to just pay me more money to begin with. And then I just. Maybe I just don't want to do this anymore. Do you have those points in. So the question is, is that a normal thing for a business and. Or is it just reflective of all the other shit that's happening in my world right now?

I think it's reflective of all the shit that's happening in your world right now. Okay, I want to think about this. I've actually been doing a lot of work on this personally, and in writing this book, that it will maybe at some point be done. I don't know. Anytime we get into a mindset of like, it's either either or it's like this binary. It's like we're an octopus and we're cutting off most of our tentacles.

Right?

It's like we're cutting off the true expression of ourself. Like, oh, I should just give up and just focus on this one thing because, like, what will that require you to give up if you just focus on that one thing? You know, Jennifer, you haven't gone through this much training to be a coach because you're not passionate about it. You know, you are very much in this environment right now that is essentially like a vacuum, a like a void vacuum that's just sucking everything that you've got to give.

Right.

And it's also making you strip yourself down to just like, like a one faceted, single faceted Jennifer so that you can survive there. Right. That might be what you need to do to check into your 9 to 5 right now, but if you start making decisions that makes yourself single faceted in other areas of your life, that's, that's on you. That's you cutting off the things that you're passionate about. That's you cutting off the ways in which you can have impact in the world. Right. I think, I think where you're getting overwhelmed is that like, it's a lot to do all at once. Right. And I know we've talked about this a lot. You know, you don't actually have to worry about setting up the business right now. What you have to worry about is getting one interviewee and then after you get that one, get another interviewee. Okay, bye, Margaret.

Thank you so much. This is super helpful. Hi, Jennifer.

Okay, and then Margaret, that second one, get another one. That's you're just focusing on getting one after another after another. Right.

I feel like.

And tell me if I'm wrong. I am not attached to being right here in talking about the interviews and, and doing the market research. You hear 50 and you think, I need to get all 50 right now. Yeah.

I need to complete the list.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's break it down. You're just gonna get one. Yeah, that's it. And, and that'll keep this tentacle alive. That'll keep this tentacle from getting cut off. Just that one interview, even if they turn out to not be your ideal client because it'll inform what you're not looking for.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in that.

Yeah. What you choose to do with your day job right now, I mean, I'm supportive of you any which way you want to go. I also think that during a government shutdown, especially in this climate, like this might not be the moment to make that decision.

Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself. Like, this is not the time. This is not the time to make the decision. So I'm just kind of like, where's this coming from? Is it just overwhelm and exhaustion and just, you know, sometimes you just get tired of fighting. I think you just get tired of fighting.

Yeah.

So it makes sense why all I want to do is watch Game of Thrones right now, you know.

Okay, can I, can I get a little like, metaphysical with you for A second.

Bring it on.

Katie. I've been doing like, I've been having my own little like spiritual like crisis with everything going on.

I'm sorry. And I'm glad I'm not alone.

Oh no, no, no. But it's like, it's really like calling to me about what do I believe about the universe, right? Because like what the fuck is going on? What's the point, right? When I really dig into what my beliefs are about the universe, I think we really have two powers at work. We have love, which is like this never ending, all giving energy source and it builds connection and it like when you're in the love energy, you are the full expression of everything that you are. Like, and it's, it's multifaceted and it's complex and it like there's no fitting you into any one box, you know, you are an octopus with more than eight legs, you know, and each, each tentacle has its own thing, you know, but you're expression for yourself. And like when you're in that, like you attract all the other like people who can connect with you and build those love bonds with you, right? And on the other end we have this void. And I don't think the void is inherently evil, but the void is never satiated. It just consumes. It's like a black hole. It's just anything in its vicinity, it just sucks into it and it disappears. We have no idea where it goes. But I think when people get too far away from the love energy from like source and they get sucked into, you know, the orbit of the void, they start thinking there's never, there's never filling up enough, there's never enoughness here. And so what happens? They start stripping themselves down of all the things that make them like them, you know, and this is where we get sucked into this binary of like this is the role of the man and this is the role of the woman. And you know, you have to be professional and this is what professional looks like. And, and we start creating rules for ourselves to follow. And then we start, because like we're not accepting our full self, we start acting kind of hateful towards people who are in their full expression because it's different, it's not what we're in and we're following the rules, right? And I think you're, you're in a system that is built on that, that is right. But you are so connected to source and to love and the work you do helps other people be more connected to source and love, right? By Accepting themselves and being the best version of themselves.

Yeah, that does feel very accurate. It does feel like I just envisioning a whirlpool or you just keep getting stuff down and you're trying so hard to get out. This is not right. This is not here. This is not the right spot.

But here's the thing about this, is that the only thing that can keep you getting sucked into the void is to just, like, keep being in the love, keeping in the connection, keep investing your time and your energy into all the things that you're passionate about, into all the relationships that you have. And people in the void will hate it. They will hate it because you know what? They don't have it. You know, the whole talk about Mike Johnson and his Grindr account this week.

I haven't seen his Grindr account talk, so.

Oh, my God. It's like, yeah, okay. But I. I honestly feel so bad for him and for all the Republicans and conservatives who are working against LGBTQ + community, who are actually in the community.

Yeah. It's so sad.

And it's like the reason they're. They're acting this way against the community is because they have no love or self acceptance.

Yeah. Classic insecurities and, you know, whatever. Yeah.

Okay, so was that helpful?

Yeah, it was. It was. It was. It was very validating in that it's like, don't make decisions right now because it's not what you really want. And recognize your energy stores are. Are low because they're constantly getting sucked out, and it's really hard to fill them right now.

Yeah.

So at least that's what I heard.

100%. 100%. And I love Game of Thrones. And also, you know, depending on how impacted you are by the energy of a story, you may want to find stories that are more filling.

Yeah.

You know, because it's. It's just doom and gloom in medieval outfits, you know, and magic.

It is. It was. And. And at the same time, I was actually just watching it beforehand, and I'm like, God, these people. I feel so sad for them. Like, how did we even. Thank God we're not there anymore. So, like, there's an element of, like, well, okay, there's that. And it does. At the end. I mean, it does get better.

It does. So, yeah.

But it also, like, it's also just generally what you're. You're talking about is just validating and that maybe that's what I'm not doing enough of right now, too, I think, is just validating how much in the stuck.

We are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And honestly, you just acknowledging where you're feeling stuck and overwhelmed and completely drained. Your clients are going through that too.

Yeah.

You know, and they may not work for the government. They may work in private for private companies. They're going for it. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's part of what makes it extra hard is like, everybody's looking for some help to get out of this talk right now, so. Okay. I'll. I'll keep on keeping on. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Actually, Sorry. Before I let you go, you just said something like, everyone's looking for help to get out of this right now. That's putting so much responsibility on you to actually help them solve this.

Okay.

People actually need his help to get through it themselves. Right. And that's all you can do as a coach, is you can support them to get through whatever we're going through without abandoning themselves, without stripping themselves down.

Yep.

You're not responsible to help them solve the world or to solve the world for them that. That creates. Oh, that's impossible. And that pressure on you, much.

No, that was absolutely right.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Cool.

I appreciate the extra time.

Thank you. Have a good weekend. And you know where to find you too.

All right.

Bye.

Have fun. Thank you so much.

Bye.

Bye.