EP 70 - ICF Coaching Certification: Why 90% of Coaches Stay Broke (And How to Actually Launch)

If you're a coach or want to become a coach, you need to listen to this episode before you make any decisions to get any certifications. Why? Because you spent perhaps a decade or two by being brilliant for someone else's vision, and then now you are finally ready for something that is truly yours. You might be thinking a certificate is the finish line. A gold standard ICF credential is the finish line, but it is not. A certificate, even at the highest levels, is not going to get you paid. And I am going to close that gap nobody is talking about between getting certified to getting your first paying client. If you're ready to make money by changing lives, let's begin. Are you ready to shine? Come on, it's the Shiny One. You got this. My dear Shiny Mind, you who is watching, may I invite you to hit that subscribe button? This way, you and I are going to become partners in shine and elevate the consciousness in the world. Thank you so much in advance, and I'll see you inside. Welcome to the Shiny Minds Show with Dr Shiny. I am Dr Shiny Unsal, the founder of the Academy of Neuroshine Technology. I am an ICF Master Certified Coach with over 3,000 hours of coaching experience. I worked with thousands of people from over 56 countries so far, and then I am honored to have been awarded as a Distinguished Coach Educator in 2024 by the International Coaching Federation. I started my career as a licensed NLP trainer, Neuro Linguistic Programming, for those of you who don't know what NLP is, and by working with people, teaching NLP, leadership communication strategies, emotional intelligence, coaching skills for over a decade, including at the University of California in Los Angeles, UCLA, where I am still a faculty member. I learned something. I learned something that is so dear to my heart that I cannot wait to share with you today. Because I want to cover a gap that nobody wants to talk about when it comes to coaching. That is super dear to my heart. If you are a coach, perhaps you have already your coaching business, your consulting business. Perhaps you are already creating transformations, making a change. That's how you're making money. But, and then you are wondering, how am I going to take my business, my career to the next level? Because I'm not making enough money. Anyone? I got you. How do I know? Because I certify hundreds of coaches every year. And how do I know? Because I talk to them. How do I know? Because I am in this world and then I observe and I actually am researching. I'm always researching and asking, listening. And what I hear again and again and again, especially from people who graduate from other programs out there in the world of International Coaching Federation, in the world of coaching, is that there is a huge gap. Nobody is teaching business skills. You might get a certificate from any school, any place that you can choose. If you go to ICF's website and look for ESS, education search service. And if you go and look for spiritual leadership mindset, neuroscience, corporate coaching, business coaching, life coaching, you can choose your categories and then you can choose a program accordingly. You know what you also need to pay attention is the business skills. Are they covering business skills? Because if they are not covering business skills, Let me break the news. You're going to be broke. How do I know? Because I know. Certificate is amazing. I have all the certificates in the world, right? Look at me. That's what I love because that is the credential. We want to have credibility in order to make a difference. We want to have the confidence. Your certificate is going to give you confidence, but it's not going to get you paid unless you learn marketing and business skills. And that's Why? I'm gonna talk about 3 main points to invite you, to encourage you to make a very well-informed decision about your coaching education program, your coaching career, your next step to create something that is truly yours, and also to make it AI ready. Because we are in 2026, and if you are not creating something that is AI ready, future-proof, Guess what? You're still gonna be broke. You're gonna stay broke. I will tell you, why am I being so direct today? Because you can go search the entire industry and then you will see in the ICF's global report surveys, the medium coaching income for an ICF certified coach is about $60,000. That's it. And if you live in the United States, you know that this is not the amount of money that you are going to want to make, especially if you're coming out of a corporate world. And if you want to build something that is truly yours, you don't want to work for somebody else anymore. And if you want that, you're going to need more than an ICF certificate, although I provide all the certificates. Okay, so let me break it down for you. Number 1, you definitely need to move beyond the certificate. Certificates are great because they're going to give you the credentials. They're going to give you the skills so that you learn how to hold the space for people and to really work with them one-on-one. Because coaching is a very delicate, a very sensitive profession. You build a career around who you are, around your values, around your identity, around your voice. Your voice matters. You are the brand. You are the message. You are the frequency when you are building a coaching business. Therefore, the certificate alone is not gonna get you anywhere, okay? It's just the building block number one. And I hear from my own graduates as well that yes, it does take requirements. Guess what? That's the game we're playing. Yes, of course, ICF is going to require you to have 100 hours of coaching experience. I mean, think about it. Wouldn't you want to work with an experienced coach? Wouldn't you want them to have at least 100 hours of experience? That's your internship, right? I always tell my, my students, my coaching students, in the world of International Coaching Federation, ACC is the Associate Certified Coach. That's your bachelor's degree. PCC is Professional Certified Coach. Now we're talking. That's your master's degree, and that is the gold standard for ICF. And then the third level is Master Certified Coach, and that is the PhD in your coaching. Because there are layers and levels, obviously you're going to start somewhere and then you're going to build it up just like anything in life. You need to be okay with that. You need to be resilient, you need to be ready to face whatever that comes on your way. That is what is going to make you unshakable. You need to start with that mindset. You need to go all in, and then you need to see the credentials as your foundational blocks. It's not the finish line. It's start here, number one. Actions that, okay, the whole accreditation, the whole credentialing process at the highest, highest, highest levels with the International Coaching Federation is where you begin, but it's not the finish line. I hear so many complaints about so many coaches from so many other places, and the main complaint is that nobody teaches them the business skills, especially in the world of coaching education at the ICF level. ICF doesn't require any organization to teach business skills yet. Okay. That's not the requirement. The requirement is coaching skills. And because of that, when the student graduates, they learn the curriculum and then they learn the skills. What skills? Coaching skills. Is it enough? No, it's the finish line. Hello, shiny minds. Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to tell you that that this Shiny Minds Show is sponsored by my Academy of Neuroshine Technology, where myself as the founder and my hand-selected amazing elite ICF accredited coach educators are here to support you, to make you feel safe, seen, heard, appreciated, free to become whoever you want to be. And also transformed forever inside out. We are here to hold your hand and to support your growth. If you feel it in your heart to become more and achieve more, then go to shinyunsal.com, grab that PDF, and we will see you inside. Number 2 is that big gap between getting certified to getting your first paying client. Okay, that's the gap, and that gap is the main point. That's everything. If I am not teaching my students how to close that gap, I am noticing that they're struggling. If you are not joining the Neuroshine Technology Coaching Business School, if you are not leveraging my experience as the founder of the Academy of Neuroshine Technology, you're missing out. You're missing out completely. Why? Because not only I have the marketing and advertising background in my own corporate world when I started in the year of 2000, and then when I stopped and started my own business in 2010, I started with a decade of marketing experience. And then I worked with Fortune 100 brands from Coca-Cola to Audi to BP to Kotex to Avon to Burger King to Gillette, to name a few. I worked with the world's best brands, and then I understood branding was the name of the game. And that's how I created Neuroshine technology with the Neuroshine Moments and the intention to create shiny minds. When I tell you you are the shiny mind, I tell you that you are empowered, you're enlightened, and then you do have that cosmic power within you. And that is more than anything that a school can teach you, because this is about the power you have inside, your own strengths, and then turning that into your own brand. You are your own brand. If you're not learning that at your coaching education program, you're missing out. And that's the reason why you're struggling. That's the reason why most of the coaches are broke. That's why. And I want to help because I know how to help. We go from coaching skills to another 4 weeks of working on your business. You work on your ideal client avatar. Just like the universe and the movie Avatar, we work together using my proprietary Neuroshine Technology framework. We use the same exact framework that you learn during your Neuroshine Technology coaching education program that is going to get you the certificate, the ICF credential. You are learning that, and that's just step number 1. What is step number 2? Step number 2 is the coaching business school. In the Coaching Business School, we add on to your coaching skills because coaching skills, believe it or not, are the most precious communication skills in the entire world. You're going to become an amazing communicator as a coach. You're gonna learn how to bottom line. You're gonna know how to ask powerful questions. You're gonna know how to articulate your message. You're gonna learn how to influence people. You're gonna learn how to create transformations. Together with people and for people. You're going to become a changemaker. And then we're going to get all those skills and then pour them into your brand, your marketing, your business. We're going to work on your ideal client. We're going to work on your irresistible offer. We're going to work on your core message around your personal values. And then guess what is going to happen at the end? You're going to leave my coaching business school with your offer page ready, your sales page ready with your specific Stripe or PayPal payment link so that you walk away ready to accept payments. Business is open to accept payments. That's the end result. If you are not learning how to do that, you're in the wrong place. Okay, I'm not telling you to just come learn coaching business school from me, from the Academy of Neuroshine Technology. That's not your only option, although I would want to work with you, but at least look for that, okay? Look for that coaching business angle because that's what I actually want to solve for my own coaching students. And I want that for you. Why would you want to invest thousands of dollars just to find yourself in a place where there is a lot of uncertainties. You don't even know how to create your offer. You don't even know what is your offer. You don't even know who you want to work with. You don't even know your message. You don't know what you stand for. Is that how you want to graduate? I don't want you to graduate like that. Yes, I did graduate like that myself from my own several coaching education programs. I know the struggle. I've been there. The difference is I already had my business background, my marketing background. I already created brands. And so it was for me, it was easier. At least I had some foundation to build my own business, my own brand, which is not my first brand, by the way. When I first started, I started as Believe in You. BELIVINU.com. If you literally type it like BELIVINU.com, you can also read it that way. It's going to connect you to NeuroshineTechnology.com because that was the first brand. But and then when I created Neuroshine Technology based on my own branding, again, I changed my brand. I rebranded myself. You don't have to figure it out just on day one. You can change your brand later on. You're allowed to. That's totally fine. At least you start with something. Okay? And that's what we teach inside of my Neuroshine Technology Coaching Business School. We have 4 promises. Number 1, you're gonna clarify your ideal client. Number 2, you are going to craft your irresistible offer. Number 3, you're going to create and design your own core message around your personal brand, around who you are and what you stand for. And number 4, we teach you AI skills. We teach you AI prompts. We literally give you all the prompts that we have. We give you all the skills. And all you need to do is to go copy-paste and create your entire copy, your own voice, your own coaching profile. And then number 4, We also teach you how to create a sales page with a link, payment link, so you're ready to accept payments. Business is open. Your business, your coaching business is open for clients. That is how we do it, okay? And I would love you to experience it. I do. The third angle that I want to cover is the soul angle, okay? We talked about the credential as being the first step. Not enough. It's not the finish line, it's the starting line. Number 2 is the coaching business school, the business skills. That part of the business school in this world in 2026, got to have AI prompts, got to have AI-powered skills. You cannot build a business without AI in today's world. Make sure it's AI-powered. I mean, that's why you need to come work with us. And then the third angle is the Science and Soul Integration. Have you ever experienced a program where it was absolutely deep and deeply soulful, and you keep contemplating on it, and you keep like digging in to find your truths and discover who you are, and it's just deeply fulfilling, it's juicy and delicious, and yet there's like no business part of it, like there's no business element into it? And you're like, okay, amazing. I'm, I am this beautiful soul. So then what do I do about myself? What do I do with myself? Right? You need to package yourself in a form that you can monetize. Okay. So the spiritual programs are not going to teach you that versus there might be some other programs that are definitely business oriented, like very scientific and all that. And then they like the soul and then you find yourself Okay, where's your heart? Why are you just telling me tactics and didactics? Where's your heart? Where is my top value here? Where is my emotion, my feelings? Where are they? You ever felt that? I have. It's either or, and that is a problem. That is a problem in today's world. That is a problem in today's coaching world. And we also cover that. I'm a Jinkies guy. You see that one over there? So Gene Keys is a spiritual program that invites you to go so deep within your soul based on Human Design and astrology and esoteric teachings, Chinese I Ching methodologies and genetics. Mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. I also have two doctorates in metaphysical science of consciousness and metaphysical psychology behind human behaviors. I always go back to the metaphysics. I always look at the stars and the sky mechanics to understand the cosmic OS and then the human OS and the communication between, because you are a neuron of the planet Earth. If we are able to shift your mindset, your own human OS operating system in a way that works in alignment with the cosmic OS, cosmic operating system, guess what? You're in full alignment. And that alignment is absolutely what's gonna turn you around, because now we're gonna align business strategy and soul, and we're gonna put them all together, and we're gonna maximize your core powers, your strengths, and then monetize them as well. So that's why you need a program that covers everything, that covers the science, the spirituality, the strategy, the soul. 4 S's: science, spirituality, strategy, and soul. That's what we cover in my Academy of Neuroshine Technology. And that's why when you graduate from Academy of Neuroshine Technology, you are way ahead of your time. You are way ahead of your game. You're gonna have your business ready. We have so many incredibly successful graduates all over the world, and they find their own business, their business edge after they graduate. They have their clients ready. They get their first clients. As a matter of fact, most of my graduates, they actually get their paying clients in literally week 4. I have a record. A gentleman in Santa Monica, he actually got a paying client in his second week in our program. Second week. Second This is a 15-week program. First 11 weeks is the coaching education part with the ICF requirements, and then the next 4 weeks you're with me, you're with the founder, learning from the founder. You are guided and mentored by the founder who made millions of dollars with no AI automation, just with my voice. I created that, and I will teach you how to do that. And that is My invitation to you, if you are a coach or want to become a coach or want to master your game in your coaching business, then I invite you to go check out Coaching Business School on my website and join us in the next round. Let's build you an amazing business that is on your terms. Thank you for watching. And until next time, keep shining your light. Wanna go galactic? Go galactic! Go galactic! Then you're in the right place. Let's go, let's go!