How to Find a Business Coach Who Specializes in Chronic Illness

So you may have worked with a business coach or mindset coach who has really got you, who has really understood you. You may be listening to this episode thinking, I would love to work with a coach and I want to know what will help me decide. So this is going to be a very unique episode. So stay tuned as you tune in.

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive, a globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness Creatives in Business. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, chronic illness warrior and photographer turned digital marketer turned award-winning coach. I love helping chronic illness warriors and creatives to live with their chronic illness and creativity as their superpower in life and business. On the show, you will hear the very stories that helped our guests, my clients, and myself to define our dream way of making money with proven strategies and marketing and mindset, all to grow a business that thrives without sacrificing our health. So stay tuned because you'll find the inspiration and tools and the resources you need to craft a life and business that thrives.

So this is the month of March in 2023, whenever you're listening to this, and it is Endometriosis Awareness Month. Now you might be thinking, Nikita, you just did a little spiel about investing in a coach and like what you should be looking for and how is this an advantage? Well, I'm going to be sharing a different kind of point of view on why working with any coach, whether it's for your business, your life, health coach, um, whatever, money coach, dating coach, whatever you want to call it, who has been diagnosed with endometriosis, how it is so of a one-up for you and your business. I will also share with you in the show notes a different, um, episodes where I go in more detail about my journey as an endometriosis warrior, and also a link to a curated little feed where I curated a couple episodes from the show from other people who have lived with endometriosis. And I am sharing my journey and they're sharing theirs on the different tips tools and resources that have helped them grow a business while living in a— with endometriosis. But this year I didn't want to have a whole podcast episode or for the whole month talking about my journey with endometriosis and how it affects me. I wanted to flip the script and really lean into why working with any person, especially any person living with endometriosis, is a one-up huge advantage to you in your business. There are 4 reasons. So I'm going to be quick about this because that's how I'm going to be about this episode. All right. So if you are looking for a coach, okay, if you are trying to decide who should be my coach, the 4 things I'm going to mention here that I think makes a coach even more advantageous are the things that I personally have experienced and learned living with endometriosis that has literally helped my clients make way more money and have way more results in their life as a transformation than if I didn't have endometriosis. And I believe this is the case for many of my Endo Warriors who are out there running businesses and are coaches or consultants or helping other people in their business. And this is a mindset and an embodiment of how we've turned these challenges into real superpowers of leverage in our business is to serve our clients. So number 1, there's always signs before the pain. So you might be thinking like, what are you talking about, Nikita? In your business, there are always signs of grumblings, pain, discomfort, um, places where you might get stuck, places where you might be overcomplicating things, places where you are not being detailed enough, places where your strengths are not being leverage, whether your weaknesses are not being identified, there are always signs before the actual manifestation of what that might look like in your business. So what I have found is that living with endometriosis, if you have lived with endometriosis, and I also believe any chronic illness warriors who've lived with chronic pain, we get to a point where we start being really sensitive and knowing, hey, my body is giving me signs that I need to chill, I need to process something, I need to let some stuff go. And there's inklings and there are patterns. And if you're looking to invest in a coach, you want a coach who knows and understands the importance of seeing things before they happen, okay? So when you have a coach that's able to look and be a part of your business, who can look to see Hey, I see where you're going, but also, by the way, I also see these little inklings that might be leading to a place that you might feel stuck, frustrated, where you might not be getting the results that you want to see, because I'm seeing pain that you are shrugging off as just normal. So let me give you an example. I was recently in a conversation with someone in one of my groups and that I like networking., and they were feeling frustrated with their results as far as, um, their sales of a conversion of an offer that they're working on. Now, me, Nikita Williams, have been listening to this person's experience and things like that, and I have made a mental note because I've noticed some pains, AKA some things that she's been frustrated about, some things that she's been, you know, feeling uncomfortable things that kind of she's like shrugged off and kind of like went doing other things thinking, oh, just, it's just like growing pains, right? And I identified in my head before we had this conversation in our, in our, in our chat of like, you probably didn't acknowledge this pain point because you thought it just needed time, but in reality it needed attention. And that is something that I have learned as a chronic illness Indo warrior of being like, sometimes we think, oh, the pain just means I need time, but sometimes the pain needs attention. And so what do I mean by that? Sometimes the pain means you need to identify what triggered that pain. Why are you feeling that pain? And how intensely and where are you feeling it? And what happened before then, right? And so for me in my own journey, I have I have learned that if I— there are times where I need to just like, this is the pain, acknowledge the pain, and go do something else because time will, time will let it go. But there are other times that I have learned intuitively to really pay attention to, like, no, I need to pay attention to the pain. I need to really like not shrug this off and think time is going to fix this. And you want a coach who's able to do that in your business, who's able to look at something that you might be shrugging off like it just needs time but really needs more attention. So going back to this person that I'm talking about, I knew that part of the problem that she was having had a lot to do about her thoughts around the way she was going about the sales thing that she was doing. And because of that, she shifted her whole marketing, like, her whole marketing play to give her less, you know, give her more energy and more time to do something else to deal with that feeling. But really what needed to happen was she needed to identify why she felt so exhausted and tired from the actual sales process that she had in place. And how did she become that overwhelmed by it so much so that she changed her whole marketing thing around in order to avoid it completely? And now she's seeing that actually maybe I didn't need to do a whole 360. I needed to identify the pain point and fix what caused the pain so that she could have the capacity to do the thing that was already working in her business. So this is what you want in a coach. This is someone you want to be able to do that for you. And I have found so many chronic illness warriors, especially those living with endometriosis, who have been told multiple times, like, no, there's nothing wrong. Don't pay attention to that pain.

That's normal.

Time will make it better. We have learned the difference between paying attention to the pain, like, and allowing time. We know which one we need to do. And I also know which one to do for you and your business. And so do other women. Okay. There is— this is the next one. So there is no one-size-fits-all. Approach to business. Every woman who has been diagnosed with endometriosis, or every person, because it's not also— it's been medically shown that it's not just women. Sometimes men have this. Sometimes you, you're younger, you can have this. It's not necessarily just a woman's issue. It's a whole systematic body autoimmune issue. Okay, so There is no one-size-fits-all approach to endometriosis treatment. It's amazing to me, like, through my journey and talking to other women who, you know, they have issues with fertility. Some of them had issues, didn't have any pain until after having babies, or they were fine. And then literally right before premenopause or like before they went into menopause, they had all of these other symptoms come up and they're like, what's going on? The treatment has to be different for each person. And yes, there are things out there that say this is the way you're supposed to handle endometriosis, but there's a reason why so many women go misdiagnosed with endometriosis because there's no fixed way all the way to support a woman or person living with endometriosis. So what that has to do with your business, as many coaches out there who like to tell you and make you believe that there's only one way to have success in business is a lie. It is a lie. And as a woman, I have really come to like appreciate in my journey as an endometriosis warrior that there is no one-size-fits-all. If someone had told me that essential oils and Pilates and actually having a hysterectomy would give me a better quality of life with endometriosis, I would have been like— like before I actually did it, I would have been like, but none of the books say so. Like none of the things I've read say that that is actually true, right? And so I had to learn to lean more into what could work for me based on my body and circumstances. And so when you work with a coach who is open to being flexible with what works for you, you have leverage in your business. I have clients of all different shapes, sizes, and cultural backgrounds and everything. And yes, I have a framework that I help my clients to work through, but it is so heavily based on them. And it's so heavily based on tweaking it towards them. And this is why I believe when you work with a coach one-to-one, you have even more leverage in creating greater results because they, they understand and support you in tweaking or completely doing something different because it aligns better with you. So as an Indo Warrior, I believe that if I had believed that there's only one way to manage living with endometriosis, I probably would still be in pain. And I have recognized that for myself in my business, helping my clients, is that I see that the ability to help my clients to see, well, their way can work has been absolutely a game changer. And I have worked with other coaches that are the same. They have other chronic illnesses and things like that. Where they recognize like, yeah, I could— like, this is the way that has worked for me, but I'm, I'm, I'm flexible. I'm flexible to help you find what works for you and tweak it in a way that gives you the results that you want. I'm not married to this one particular way of doing something, right? I have another coach who tells me like, I can give you a whole thing and you can choose to only take 5% and have greater results. And I'm okay with that. Right? And that is such a powerful empowering tool you want to have in a coach who is okay with that. I've had a client recently tell me that they were actually in a program where a coach did not believe that. They felt like their way was the only way and they had to be done exactly verbatim of how they did it, and they didn't think that they could get results without it doing it exactly that way. And when you're living with flare-ups and things happening in your life, you want some flexibility to kind of play with what might work best for you. And if you're working with a coach that doesn't give you that kind of pace and space, it could hold you back from actually finding what works for you. So that is number 2. Our challenges are part of us, not all of us, and it's only a part of us. Like, so how do I say this? An Indowarrior understands that our challenges are a part of us, but they do not make us, okay? So we understand that you have challenges in your life, but we also know you can excel above them or through them around them, whatever them, because we know they're only a part of you. They're not all of you. And sometimes as business owners, I know even for myself, there can be a challenge of seeing the difference between this is my business that I am very much passionate about and this is my life, right? And having— it's just like, I can be really excited about um, what I'm doing in my business and who I'm doing it for and how they're having results. But I also recognize I need to prioritize me in order for those things to be true. So for, for anyone that you're working with, you want to find a coach that understands the ability to have your business be a part of you but not all of you. Right? Like, you want them to be able to understand, like, maybe you pull back on some days because you need to focus more on you, because that is how you get results ultimately, right? So you really want a coach that can lean into understanding your challenges, or even the things that aren't challenges, things that you really enjoy are a part of you. Like, they're little buckets. I like to think about things like endometriosis, fibromyalgia, chronic bladder pain, my love for photography, my love for people, my love for podcasting. All of those different things are all like in boxes, all like together. And I get to pick and choose what part of me am I going to really lean into in this environment and then in this situation, am I going to pick several? Great. Am I going to pick one or two? Great. Am I only going to focus on one? Yes, but I get to choose. I get to use them as tools to better get me to where I want to go. You want a coach that empowers you to do the same. And I have found that women living with endometriosis and other chronic illnesses, we've learned that on days that we don't feel great, we are using a completely different set of tools and still feel like we can choose what our thriving that day looks like.. And you want a business coach, a mindset coach, a health coach, or some kind of coach to help you do the same and to help you to see where you might be putting all of you into something that doesn't require all of you. It just needs a part of you. Okay. And the last thing, you want someone who knows how to leverage pain. As endometriosis warriors, I have found that the concept of leveraging pain seems kind of weird. Like, it seems kind of difficult, right? But to me, pain gives you so much information, and I have learned to turn that information into leverage.

Right?

I believe we all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. We all have things that fill our cup and things that take away our cup, like drain our cup. And that's the case with pain. Pain is very, um, how do I describe this? Pain is felt differently, but we can always know if we've felt this pain before. Right? So if you've been feeling burnt out, trust and believe you've felt this burnt out feeling or inklings of it before. So this kind of goes back to my first one, like there's always signs before the pain, but more specifically, how are you leveraging that pain to serve you in times of pain? Right? So for me, For example, when I'm working with a client who is feeling really frustrated with the results, which is another place of pain, I like to ask them more questions about why, what, how, like all of the context of it. And then I like to lean into, well, what have you learned from that pain? What have you learned from that burnout feeling? What has helped you in the past when you felt this kind of leading up to burnout, this feeling, this, this painful feeling that you're having, this discomfort feeling, if you will? And every time I work with a client in some way, they always like find the answers in their pain to create the solution for themselves. And I always like to joke around and say like, the answer was always there, but because you were only seeing the pain, you didn't know how to leverage it to help you see what you could do. And I have found that for me as a coach specifically, and I don't— I can't really speak to other coaches in this particular way, but I have learned how to seriously leverage pain in my personal life and pain in my client's life. And I need to give you an example of this. So I have a client who is amazing at, um, just doing the thing. Like, she can do pretty much— sorry, that's silly— she can do pretty much anything. And she has her times where it's like I'm amazed at how much she can do sometimes, but sometimes it's very painful, the amount of energy she's drained from doing the thing. And during those times, she tends to want to do less, right? Do less. And that's what we would naturally do, right? We'd be like, I need to pull back. I need to pull back more. And for this specific client, what I have seen in her pain, quote unquote, is that her doing less creates more pain. It's not that she needs to do less per se, she just needs to be more intentional about what she is doing more of. And when she brings her intention more specifically around the things she's doing, she actually grows and grows at a faster pace on top of feeling less pain around it. Like, it's like an opposite situation for her. But if you were working with a coach who thought, well, what you think you think about pain, right? Like, when you experience pain, you need to stop, you need to slow down, you need to like all of the things— I may not necessarily say that to you. Most of the times I do, but specifically for this client, because I understand even for me, quote unquote, like not even quote unquote, like even today woke up having crazy cramps from my endo pain that's still there, that's still there even after hysterectomy, y'all. That's a whole nother conversation. But what I didn't know about that pain is that I can use that pain as fuel in my Pilates session, and that usually helps me in my Pilates to do better. I know that's crazy. It's like a crazy hypothetical thing that people are like, Nikita, it doesn't happen. I promise you it happens. Ask my Pilates coach. It happens. And so I have just learned that pain can communicate in different ways and you can leverage it in different ways. And there are times, yes, you need to rest. There are times, yes, you need to pull back. But there are some times you can use that to help you get to where you need to go.

Faster.

And that's just a very unique way, um, that I use that with my clients, right? So those are the 4 things. So I'll repeat those 4 things again. So number 1, you want a coach who knows what the signs of pain are before they happen. Like, how can they see the pain before you even see or feel it? There's no one-size-fits-all, right? You want a coach who believes that, hey, there needs to be flexibility and freedom and a kind of like a flow and helping you create the results you need because you are unique and so is your business. You also want a coach who can understand that the challenges that you have are not what make you. They are a part of you, and you can decide how you're going to use those challenges or those gifts even and those beautiful things you have going on in your life in different buckets or in that same bucket to support you. Like, you get to choose. I think one of the things— for a second, let me go off on a tangent here. One of the things that I've really come to appreciate about seeing my clients who have multiple different chronic illnesses is that, yes, they have chronic illnesses that are a part of them, but they have so many other challenges that also affect them. That have nothing to do with their chronic illness, but they also have all these beautiful strengths and amazing gifts and like knowledge and education and expertise that is also a part of them. And having a coach who can really help you see all of those facets of you and use them in a way to help you grow and create the results you want— you want a coach who can help you do that and see that. Okay. And lastly, you want a coach who can help you leverage your pain, right? Leverage it. Like, it's nice when you can leverage pain, right? Because, you know, we think about pain, we're thinking, oh my gosh, I don't want to go through this. This is going to be painful. But what if you started to enjoy a little bit of the pain because you know the results on the other side will be growth? More ease, more comfort. Or you have someone in your corner who's like, hey, I'm going to carry the pain with you because I know that what's going to happen on the other side of this is so much better than you ever could have imagined. And also you want a coach who can say, you know what, actually, we don't really need to move through this pain. We need to just be with the pain, slow it down, let it ride its ride. Let's go through it. Hang here, okay? Let's just deal with it. But you also want a coach who could help you leverage your pain so you get the results you want either quicker or make more money from it, right? So these are the 4, like, probably not in your thoughts about what you want to be looking for in a coach, uh, especially if you're looking for a coach to help you in your business. And I specifically think any coach living with any chronic illness, um, and specifically endometriosis, will help you to really tap into the life and to you and your business in a way that leverages all of the beautiful gifts, all the beautiful and not so beautiful challenges, to help you create your results. So that's just my little take on this, this, this month, this week, I should say. The next 2 episodes you're going to hear are from one endometriosis warrior who is sharing her journey where she is now. You've heard her on the podcast before, so you're going to hear like an update on where she is in her business. And the next episode is about how to grow your business if you are a health coach. And you live with chronic illness. All right, you guys, so as always, remember that yes, yes, yes, you are crafted to thrive.