In this interview, Tami Holladay speaks with former client Martha Wright about her experience in the eight‑week "Be You, Be Confident" coaching group. Martha entered the program during a period of significant personal transition, seeking clarity about her next steps in career and life. She contrasts the structured, goal‑oriented nature of the coaching program with her prior therapy, highlighting how the curriculum—particularly the week on mindset and limiting beliefs—gave her tools to notice and interrupt negative self‑talk. A concrete example illustrates how she applied this skill when a friend presented a job opportunity, shifting from self‑doubt to a more empowering perspective. Martha praises the group dynamic, noting the trust, respect, and validation that comes from hearing peers arrive at similar insights. She also values the tangible worksheets and exercises that provide ongoing reminders for self‑reflection. When asked what would convince a fence‑sitter to join, she emphasizes that coaching is an open‑ended journey suitable even for those without a clear, big goal, and that incremental self‑awareness can catalyze meaningful change. She concludes with a strong recommendation for the program.
Chapters
Hi, Martha. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited just to be able to share with others about your experience and have you talk about how you were part of our last group, the Be You, Be Confident coaching group. Yes. And I wanted to start off of having you share with others, say, where you were at when you first heard about this group and then going through it and kind of what you Where you're at.
I've experienced, you know, some pretty significant life changes over the past couple of years. And, you know, I'm in a point in my life where I really was doing a lot of internal work and self-evaluation and really trying to think about, you know, what is my next move? Where do I want to go next? Some of that is career-oriented. It's a lot of, you know, just life stuff too. I'd heard of coaching before, but it never was so easily made available. Recommendation was made to me, and I had an initial meeting with you, Tammy, and I just thought, oh, wow, great energy. How could this— how could it be bad to be part of something uplifting, right? I was coming from a place where I just wasn't quite sure of my next step and kind of felt uncertain. was, you know, maybe facing and still facing. I mean, our lives just continue to change and change and change. So just trying to be more conscious about what I want to do, what I want my future to look like.
You're not quite in a major transition right now, but you know that you want some change to happen. And so that's— this led you to kind of thinking, hey, maybe this would be a good place to start. Is that what you were thinking?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And You did mention, and I like that you mentioned that we did get to talk because you and I didn't know each other. And I offer a free call where people can just call or chat with me and find out, like, hey, are we a fit? Ask questions about the group or coaching. And that was really fun to connect with you. It's kind of brought a level, like you said, of just comfort. This is going to be what—
Yes.
A good thing or whatever.
Yes. And I think that anybody that would see you or interact with you would just pick that up right away. Right. You're very positive and yeah. Super.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, OK. So then thinking about when— thinking about the group, it was 8 weeks long. What would you say was your biggest win? What was your biggest takeaway?
We did a lot of self-reflection, right? And I have been in therapy for a while. And I thought, oh, I'm doing this already. And it was very different than therapy. Definitely a structured way of moving through a program, moving through different topics and learning about different things. I would say my biggest win was I think I'm gaining the ability to interrupt my thinking, to my negative thoughts, right? To catch myself when I'm doing things. Some of the work that we did when I— when we talk about limiting beliefs, for instance, right? Now that I know that I have these things, right? Awareness is Such an important first step. Now that I know that these things exist within myself, within my brain, I can I can look out for them. And it doesn't mean that I'm not going to encounter those thoughts. It just means that I have the ability now to say, "Wait a minute! Is that what I really think?" A friend came to me. An example is it's funny that during the coaching program, a friend came to me with a job opportunity, and. At once I was excited, and then I got nervous, and I started to doubt my experience and question myself. And this is all in the space of, you know, 5 minutes from somebody saying, hey, I have something of interest to you, right? I didn't even know anything about it, and my mind was just racing. And I stopped myself during that spiral, and I was like, wait a minute, what if I just approached this? From a different— what if I just thought about this differently? Instead of thinking I can't, why don't I build up evidence for why I can, right? And that is a huge difference in, you know, kind of approaching problems and approaching opportunities, right? What if I just think I can? And even if somebody else doesn't agree, it doesn't matter because I still have the ability to approach those problems with a really different— just a different point of view. Yeah.
So kind of that we spend a whole week on mindset and limiting beliefs and where our thoughts influence us. And so that's really neat that in the midst of that, you had someone kind of bring something in your brain was like, whoa, I'm going to go down on this one. And you're like, no, we're not.
Yeah. Life threw me a real life example, and I was like, where Where are my worksheets? Right. You know, but I, you know, it's hard to stop yourself and I don't stop myself. It's hard to do that. But working through some of those things, the awareness is huge.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's practice now that you have tools. Now it's practice. So.
Yeah. Yes, yes, definitely.
What would you say would be— was your favorite part of the group?
I really enjoyed— well, you know, the group was a wonderful group of people. There was respect and trust, you know, and everybody was, you know, very interested in what others had to say and engaged. So I really appreciated that from, you know, all of the members. And I also really liked hearing other people come to the same conclusion that I did, right? It makes you feel like Gosh, I'm not alone if, if somebody— oh, I thought the same thing. Or, or conversely, I hadn't thought of it that way, but now I do. That like sparks something else in my brain. So really having a group to— who's working through the same things, I think just really enriches the experience for me. I really enjoyed it.
Yeah. Did it— at first, was there any like hesitations about being a part of a group?
Yeah, you know what? I think a group is less pressure, right? So I was excited to be— I was excited to be a part of a group because it meant I still could engage with you and the material, but it wasn't gonna be an hour of, what did you do this week, Martha? Right? You know, so it definitely— not that it like took any pressure off of me doing, you know, I printed out the sheets, so I had physical reminders of, you know, worksheets that I wanted to work through. But, but yeah, I definitely enjoyed the group experience for sure.
No, I appreciate that, that perspective, because for some people, they want that one-on-one, and for other people, they don't want the intensity of that. And so, and you were, you were a very dedicated member of the group. All of the group was very active in participating. And so I just, I appreciate that perspective. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So some people might be thinking, why coaching? Why this coaching group? What if they're sitting on the fence? What would you say to them?
If you're ready to do some introspection and if you're ready to work on some self-awareness, I would definitely say do it. I mean, I thought I wasn't— I wouldn't say I was skeptical, but I was like, again, I mentioned, like, I'm already talking to a counselor. Um, you know, every couple of weeks. So I, I was kind of thinking, well, what, what more is this going to bring? And it really is very, very different. There's, there's no pressure to come out of this with like a business plan. You know what I'm saying? If somebody thinks that personal coaching is only for people who want to make career changes or who want to, I, I don't know if you have preconceived notions of what career or of what personal coaching could do, I would trash them. Because I think it is like kind of an open-ended journey. And it's like you will discover things along the way that will help point you in directions, just little directions in your life, right? One little step this way, and then maybe that leads to another thing here. That's how we all make changes. That's how we all discover, you know, our paths in life, right? Is, is one little step in front of the other. I don't know how many people have like a huge goal on the horizon. I wish sometimes I was one of those people. But on the other hand, it's okay that I'm making it up a step at a time.
Thank you for sharing that because I do talk a lot about coaching and setting goals and helping people come from here to get to here. But if you don't have that big goal ahead that you're trying to get, that you even know what it is, Just these little steps of awareness are even still moving you to a change that you know vaguely what you want.
If I am stuck in limiting beliefs, I don't know how I'm going to come into the group knowing, like, I want to open my own business, right? Because my brain isn't just going to let me go there. But what you're going to do is, you know, move yourself incrementally along a path. So maybe you're working on limiting beliefs, and you, you take us through all of the work. You did ask us for You know, big dreams and things like that, and it's okay. You know, it's it's all big dreams are okay, but it's okay if like you don't have this all figured out. That's why you do the coaching is to figure out the pieces along the way. You know, and there was someone in our group that had done coaching previously. So I mean, I saved all my worksheets. I'm looking forward to. going back and looking at them, you know, maybe 6 months, a year from now, and, and kind of revisiting and seeing like, okay, what am I ready for now? You know?
Yeah. So, so beautiful. I, I appreciate that you've taken time today to just meet with me and share with others. And I just am so grateful that our paths crossed and that we could get to know each other and you could be a part of the group and Because anybody who gets to work with me, we never— you never get rid of me because I'm always saying something. So, so thank you so much for, for this and for being a part of the group.
Oh, thank you, Tammy. It was a really, really awesome experience. And yeah, highly recommend.
