Make Money as a Life Coach® with Stacey Boehman | Everything You Need to Become a Successful Life Coach: Interview with Stacey Boehman and Lindsay DotzlafWe’re doing something a little different on today’s episode! My best friend and coach extraordinaire, Lindsay Dotzlaf, interviewed me for her podcast a couple of weeks ago, and as I was listening back to our episode, I knew that all of you needed to hear the gems we were both dropping. Wherever you are in your coaching business, I guarantee that this episode is exactly what you need to hear.

We covered so much ground in this episode, especially relating to the early days of your business when you’re first starting out and you haven’t yet established authority. It’s so easy to feel like you have no massive life success of your own, you’re riddled with a lack of self-confidence, wondering how you actually sign clients, and even worried about what you have to offer them. Well, Lindsay and I are here to talk you through it and show you how we made it work for ourselves, and how you can too!

Tune in this week as we’re discussing how to develop the mindset required to build a successful coaching practice and the people who need to hear what you have to say. We share the coaching skills you need to hone to gain an unbeatable reputation in this industry and some tips to help you keep making money as a coach for years to come.

If you want to start making serious money as a coach, you need to check out 2K for 2K. Click here to join!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • How I’ve gotten my business from nothing to a place where I make pro-athlete money working three days per week.
  • The mind drama you will inevitably have to overcome in your first couple of years as a coach.
  • Why we don’t entertain new coaches who want to make $100,000 a year without grinding and hustling their butt off.
  • How mastering the craft of coaching will open so many doors for you in the early stages of your business and beyond.
  • How I sold Lindsay on becoming my first paying client during our very first conversation.
  • Why people don’t care whether you have all the things like a niche and a website, as long as you are an amazing coach.
  • How it’s possible to be a socially awkward introvert and still build a network and be successful in this industry.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

 

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast, where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey coaches, welcome to episode 116. I have a super-fun episode for you today. You might have even already heard it if you listen to Mastering Coaching Skills with Lindsay Dotzlaf.

My best friend and coach extraordinaire interviewed me for her podcast and it was so good. We covered so much ground, especially about the first parts of your business, like when you first start out, when you haven’t established authority, when you have maybe no massive life success of your own, when you are riddled with lack of self-confidence how you actually sign clients and what really matters and what doesn’t actually matter to your clients.

I listened to this episode twice, and not in an egotistical way. The conversation that we had when she interviewed me, the questions she asked me brought up so many amazing topics that I’ve never talked about on this podcast, that I went through and I was like, “I’m going to do a podcast on this and this and this.” And it just gave me so many ideas for things to teach you moving forward in the future.

But until I can get those podcasts created, I wanted you to be able to listen to this episode right now and get these gems that we both drop over and over and over throughout the episode. I was like 20 minutes in listening – and I was there when we recorded it – and I texted Lindsay and I was like, “This is so good, so valuable.”

And so, I asked her if we could bring it on my podcast and she agreed. So, give it a listen. You’re going to really get a rundown on really what matters when you start your coaching business. And I do want you to go and subscribe to Mastering Coaching Skills and start with her podcast as well. It’s so incredible. All of the first episodes, I listen to them and I think, “Wow, I wish I had this information about being an actual life coach when I first started coaching.”

So, for me, you’re going to come and you’re going to hear all about selling and making money as a coach. But with Lindsay, you’re going to go and you’re going to learn what is going to happen and come up for you in your mind as an actual coach who’s coaching clients. It’s so powerful. So make sure you go listen to her podcast as well and please, without further ado, enjoy this episode with me and my best friend about starting a life coaching business; everything you need to know to be a successful coach at the beginning of your business. Let’s do it.

Lindsay: Hello.

Stacey: Hi.

Lindsay: I am so excited you’re here. I have to tell you really quick before you introduce yourself, that we’re friends, good friends, best friends. And I didn’t get nervous until like two minutes ago and I think my brain flipped into, like, “Oh my gosh…” from, “She’s my friend,” to like, “This is who I’m about to interview.

Stacey: At what point did it happen? When we were talking about the dog cupcakes or me spilling coffee on my desk?

Lindsay: When you mentioned the money. Maybe then.

Stacey: Oh, how to spend money?

Lindsay: Yes.

Stacey: I was trying to figure out what part of the last five minutes made you nervous…

Lindsay: It was really about two minutes before I got on here with you.

Stacey: Fair enough. Well, then I broke the ice. I immediately spilled coffee everywhere. It’s a pretty common occurrence in my office.

Lindsay: Alright, perfect segue to now introduce yourself. Tell them who you are and what you do.

Stacey: Well hello, listeners, Lindsay Dotzlaf’s audience, I am Stacey Boehman. I’m a master certified life coach with the Life Coach School and I help life coaches make money. I’m a business coach. Or am I a sales coach? I always wonder what to say about that. It doesn’t really matter. I’m, like, coach extraordinaire.

Lindsay: “Here is the life coach.” That’s what I tell people when they get confused.

Stacey: I love just saying I’m a life coach. Especially when we’re doing something obscenely crazy like flying on a private jet and they’re like, “Oh what do you do?” And I’m like, “I’m a life coach.” And I just watch the confusion wave over them, like, “What’s happening here?”

Lindsay: What do you think they’re thinking in that moment?

Stacey: That’s a good question. What do we think they’re thinking? Because we get it a lot. Like, especially when people ask Neil if he’s retired or ask him what he does and tells them that he’s retired and they’re like, “Oh, what does your fiancé do?” And he’ll say, “She runs her own company.” You know, what do you guys do? “She’s a life coach.” I don’t know, I imagine that they’re probably just like, “How?”

Lindsay: That’s as far as it gets, just, “What does that mean?”

Stacey: Yeah. I don’t think there’s any judgment. I think it’s so confusing that I don’t think there’s even any judgment about it. I think they’re literally like, “What is that?” or, “How does that work? Or like, “What?” It’s just inaudible one-word reactions is what I imagine is happening.

Lindsay: That’s so funny. Okay, so this is just totally out of the blue but that just reminded me, and I want to see if this still happens to you. Do you still get – at the level where you are, when you’re doing something like that where people know how much money you’re spending on something – so my example of that would be the last time I bought a car. I had to put my salary in and they see it and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had someone say to me, “Oh my gosh, I should be a life coach.” Do you know what I’m talking about?

Stacey: It makes me laugh because I’m wondering – I’m sure it’s not. I always think the worst of people. You know this about me.

Lindsay: This is where we’re opposite, yes.

Stacey: Like, hi, I’m a life coach, I think that absolute worst of people all the time. Let me help you with your life. But I do. I tend to go towards a little bit of judgment. But I’m imagining that they’re, in that moment, to me it’s a little diminishing. They don’t mean to. It’s like ignorant diminishing, “Oh sure, you’re doing it, I could do it.” They know nothing about you, your work ethic, how much transformation you’ve gone through in your own life, all of the deep work. They know nothing. They’re just like, “Oh, the money looks good. I could do that. I mean, you’re clearly doing it.” What exactly do you think about me that makes you think, “Oh, I could make that kind of money doing what you do?” It’s just very fascinating.

Maybe it’s also that they don’t understand – it’s kind of like maybe if they’re on the outside looking in, they think it’s like being a doctor where if you just get the education you just make the money. So, maybe they think, “Oh, if I became a life coach, I would make the exact amount of money that Lindsay makes.” And so they don’t realize that the salary range is so very based on your skill as a coach. The entry bar is super-easy. Of course you could be a life coach. You want to make the kind of money I make, buckle up, buttercup it’s going to be the ride of a lifetime. Let’s go.

Lindsay: That’s so funny. Yes. I’ve never actually thought about it like that. My thought is always like, “Okay, you should probably try.”

Stacey: I love that we help other coaches build their businesses and we’re like, “Yeah right, good luck.” It’s ridiculous. Only for people who are not already coaches. For people who are coaches who are already in the coaching industry, we love you all. But for the lookie-loos who think they can make millions of dollars…

Lindsay: It’s just the way they say it. It’s just, in that circumstance, that is what I want to say out loud. Like, “Yeah, you should probably try.”

Stacey: I feel like actually though, I get more of – the thing that I think I get the most now is comments about how much money I make and how they’re in the wrong industry, but also, I work all the time. I get a lot of diminishing comments that they assume that I am working 100 hours a week and don’t have a life. And I think I even told you about the bank situation, where the girl was like, “I think I’m in the wrong industry, but also you work all the time.” And it was a Tuesday afternoon. I was in yoga pants with coffee with Neil. It was 11 o’clock in the afternoon. We’d just come from the trainer together. I’m like, “What about this looks like I work all the time?” So, I get that a lot.

Lindsay: Probably actually nothing about that, right? It was just something that happened in her brain of explaining why she wouldn’t want to try something like that.

Stacey: Yeah, I even was recently talking with a friend and another friend had said how much I made and that I only work three days a week and he literally smacked the table and was like, “What? You only work three days a week?” So, I think that’s a challenge too for people is how much they – it’s like the way that they’re used to thinking is you enter a job, you make a certain amount of money, everybody makes that certain amount of money, it’s just like a salary. And then in order to make high amounts of money, you’re working all the time, lots and lots and lots, which is just – I love that we are all the examples that that is not true.

Lindsay: Yes, even today my husband walked in the room and saw me laying on the bed. Now, I had my phone and was responding to messages. But I’ve been having some neck pain, which I know you know about that also. And he walked in the room and he said, “Oh, what are you doing?” And I was like, “What, is this an interview? Why? Do you need me to be doing something else?” And he said, “Oh no, it’s just like, are you okay?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m just working.” And he was like, “In bed?” Sometimes that’s what we do.

Stacey: That’s what we do.

Lindsay: So, I want you to tell people, when you say you work three days a week – I like to be very clear about this – what does that mean and how did you get there? And I ask this because I have people come into my mastermind and they are so determined to be an amazing coach, to make a lot of money, and then they’re like, “I want to work two and a half days a week.”

Stacey: So good, such a good question. It just made me realize, because I’ve been getting that a lot too, that I should totally do a podcast on mine about the three-day workweek and set people straight. So, we’ll start here. We’ll start the conversation here. It’s perfect.

So, I do work three days a week on most occasions. I will give some examples of times where I will work four days a week. I usually don’t anymore. I feel like for the last year, I don’t push it beyond four. And if it’s four, it’s usually three and a half really. I joke a lot but it’s actually very serious. I have about four hours of really good productivity in me a day and I have about two hours of semi-productivity maybe.

So, in those three hours, I would say now realistically 12 to six is what I work and then there are days that I’m highly productive in those hours and there are days where I’m not. But what I love is that my brain, if it’s productive, like highly productive for even two to four hours, that level of productivity is 1000 times higher than most people.

So, I’m still getting done an insane amount, so I can generate – I’ll give you an example. I wrote an email sequence recently for a book bonus that I did. And I actually just wrote this. I had an idea for one email on the couch. I think it was a Sunday night at like 7pm. I had an idea for an email. I wanted to get it, so I just wrote it in the notes in my phone. And I knew I had this bonus coming up. And then another one came and then another one came. I ended up staying up until 10 just writing 11 emails. So, it took me maybe three hours. And we made $330,000 off of those emails. So, that’s what I mean, to give a really specific example.

But your question was, how do you get there? And that is a loaded question. I’ll give you the things that come off my mind to begin with. Do you teach your listeners the model? Do they know about the model, before I go too much into it?

Lindsay: I’ve mentioned it, but usually when I talk about it, I don’t say the C-line or the T-line because they might not know what that means. But most of them, I would say, understand the gist of your thinking creates your results.

Stacey: Perfect. Okay, so here’s how I got here. I took the result of I want to work three days a week and I put that in the result – we call it the result line. I put that in my result that I wanted to create. And then, I worked for two years to come up with the thoughts and the feelings and the behavior that would get me there.

So, I started off at five days a week. And I think that some people, they hear that it’s possible to do that and they think that you can just do that in the beginning and then you just build your business that way always. When really, it’s the result of the skill of productivity, of higher thinking, of time management. And really for me, I think the biggest thing was my brain working beyond the anxiety, the doubt, the, “I just don’t want to do this. I don’t feel like doing this, this is going to be hard.”

And for me personally, I tend to be really creative. So, for me, it’s like getting thoughts out of my brain and onto paper the way that I want it, unwinding what I call my genius and my thoughts that are new and unique to me, my ideas in the coaching world, getting that out in a simple, clear, doable way. I feel like I have so much information in my brain and so much knowledge that that is a process that really requires a lot of presence and focus and my brain doesn’t like to do that.

So, getting past that and not wasting time being worried or stressed or out of belief or procrastinating and all of that, it’s like that was the main thing for me. I just get in and I go to work and that is what allows me to work two less days a week. But it took me two years to get there.

And I also had to create a lot of systems and processes. Now I have a team that does a lot of the work for me, so it’s not just – I always tell people, when they tell me, “I want to make 100K and I’m only working eight hours a week,” I’m like, “No.” I don’t even accept people in my mastermind who have those goals. I just think it’s so completely unrealistic. It really is. And thinking that that’s the way you’re going to make 100K – 100K for me was like 60 hours a week. You’ve got to get it done.

It’s a little bit of a grind. And it’s meant to be. You learn so much about yourself and your desire and how much you really want to build a $100,000 or $200,000 business. You learn so much about yourself in that grit and that grind of just getting to work.

And yes, a lot of it is you have to work longer because you have so much drama. And the drama takes up half of your time. But you’re not entitled to the three-hour workweek. You have to work for it. You have to create it. And for me, it took me two years. So, that’s a long answer to your question.

Lindsay: No, I think it’s such a good answer because I just think it’s important to talk about. Because so many people hear coaches like you, they hear a lot of coaches say stuff like that, that are making a lot of money. And I think the misconception is, “Oh, this is just easy, and I can just do the four-hour workweek, six-hour workweek, 10-hour workweek, whatever it is, without putting in the time to earn that.”

Stacey: Yeah, my first year of my business, I worked fulltime the entire year. I didn’t quit my job until I was around 100K because I always wanted to be able to continue to pay for my coaching and keep investing in my business and myself. So, my days would look like getting up in the morning and doing coaching calls, going to work all day, coming back, doing some coaching calls, doing some coaching calls on Saturday morning. I was doing coaching calls at like 10 o’clock at night. And at one point, I had three group coaching – I had 18 one-on-one clients, three, three group coachings, and you were in one of them at least…

Lindsay: Probably all of it. Who knows?

Stacey: They were like 8-9:30 at night. So, I remember when I first started dating Neil, he would take me to dinner and then bring me home to work. It’s like, I would do eight hours of coaching, dinner, and then I would do that. And that’s not necessarily what everyone, I guess, has to do. For me, I thought about I want to become the best coach I can be the fastest. Like, all immersive, I want to clock as many coaching hours as humanly possible and I want to just master the craft of coaching and I want to work with as many people as possible as quickly as possible to get my name out into the world. And I just thought, you know, I’m willing to do that for a year or two. I’m really willing to grind and do that and it 100% paid off.

Lindsay: It’s funny thinking about that because I did that in the beginning of my business too. I would just kind of take clients wherever they would fit and I was just a general life coach and so a lot of people were working full-time and they’d want to do calls in the evening.

Stacey: Hold on, can we just stop there for a second? Because this is also something your clients need to hear. A lot of coaches are taught that they need to give two or three times that work for them, “And if you don’t want to work on the weekends or you don’t want to work at night, you’ll just have to find another coach.”

Listen, I just want to say – because what you just said is so brilliant, amazing – the mindset of saying, “I will not lose a client in my first year or two of business, my first 100K, 200K, I will not lose a client to my scheduling conflicts. I will figure it out.” I always said, “You tell me when your best time is. I will make it work.”

Now to, like, the extreme of – I don’t know, I could say even to the extreme. Because Simone is taking clients in the middle of the night. I just was unwilling to ever lose a client to, “I don’t feel like working then,” or, “That’s not the best time for me.” It was such an opportunity to be like, “I’m going to coach myself and I’m going to figure it out, no matter what it is, and I’ll be there.”

Lindsay: I think that actually made me better at scheduling because I would have to work through the resistance every time, you know, when I had an 8 o’clock PM call. That for me wasn’t the worst. For me, it was the couple people that I was like, “Sure, I’ll coach you at 7am…”

Stacey: 7am is the worst.

Lindsay: You and I have this in common. I recently did a podcast episode where one of the things I said is that I don’t start work before 10am. And I think that blows a lot of people’s minds, people that are in that mindset…

Stacey: I’m even worse than you.

Lindsay: But I haven’t always done that. It was just something that I wasn’t willing to lose a client because of my scheduling preferences. That was just not a thing. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with it. But I think it can slow down the building of your business, for sure.

Stacey: Yeah, so for me, it’s like – and I think it’s what you were saying – what I caught is that both of us were very much like, “The number one thing I want is to build quickly and work with as many people as possible, help as many people as possible, and I’m willing to go through all of the discomfort to do that and I’m not willing to turn anyone away. Like, bring it. Let’s do it.

Lindsay: Yes, I actually remember doing that for probably a year or two years. And then one day, like it’s done. I’m never doing that again. And I moved all my clients. I think I had even one or two clients quit, but I had lots of clients at the time and it was like, I’m never going back.

Someone recently offered to peer coach me in our mastermind that was at like 8pm or something and I was like, “Oh no, nah, I’ll be asleep by then. It won’t even be worth it.”

Stacey: Yes, 100%. I think that you do get to that point. And it’s like, be willing to do it until you get to that point. And I think it’s the point where you get there, you got there, if you really had truly the mindset of, “I’m going to help as many people as possible,” it’s like, when you’ve arrived at your destination where you are highly skilled, you’ve worked with a lot of people, you’ve kind of paid your dues, that’s when you’re just going to be like, you feel okay with it. You don’t even feel any regret, you’re like, “I’m just done.”

Lindsay: Yeah, and for me, it was like, I knew when the time was. I had, before that, it was very, “I’ll always just make all of the money by taking all of the clients whenever I can.” And it feels very similar also to, “Oh no, I’ll work with one-on-one clients forever.” It’s kind of that same line of thinking. I remember saying that to you, like, “There’s no way. I think I’m just going to be a one-on-one coach, that’s it forever, for the rest of my life.”

Stacey: Yeah, I remember that.

Lindsay: And then one day…

Stacey: Actually, I loved one on one coaching though. You know, it was very hard for me to let it go.

Lindsay: Oh yeah, I still love it.

Stacey: Brooke had to, like, pry it from my hands.

Lindsay: I still love it. Obviously, I love just coaching in general, which is why I do what I do, why I talk about being a great coach. But even that was like, the minute I made that decision of like, “Okay, not doing this anymore,” it just feels at that point like you’ve earned it and it feels so different because, “This feels so good and it’s like I’m moving into the next chapter,” is what it feels like for me.”

Stacey: 100% I love it. You’ve got to earn it.

Lindsay: Okay, I want to know – so, something that I get asked a lot by people that know you and that know me, they say, “I don’t understand, how can you be such good friends with someone who’s your coach, or just with someone who has been your coach for so long. Because I’m still your client. I’m in your mastermind. You have a $2 million mastermind, which is so fun, and I’m in it. So, you have been my coach for six years on and off, I think.

Stacey: It’s so crazy. You were my first client. Do they know that?

Lindsay: No, but we’re going to talk about that too for sure. So, I was your very first paying client.

Stacey: Yeah, I’d worked with 12 people for free for six weeks and one of those people referred you to me. And you were the first person that paid me. I remember you saying yes and I was like, “This is actually legit. It’s happening. Let’s do it.” I was so excited.

Lindsay: I was so excited.

Stacey: Like the proof of concept that it could happen.

Lindsay: I remember getting off of our consult and just feeling like, “I don’t even know what just happened, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to take over the world.

Stacey: Can I just say, you were the most fun first client because – and I’ve often said this about you when I talk about our friendship – our calls were so mutually valuable. You would always ask the most incredible insightful questions about coaching. I think obviously that’s why you do what you do now, is you were always into understand at the deepest, deepest level. You’re not someone that just takes and idea and is like, “Oh okay, yeah, that sounds good.” You’re like, “Let me question 1000 different angles. Let me ask about all the different ways so I can understand it with every ounce of my being.”

And so, we would have just the most incredible, intense, deep conversations, like unwinding beliefs and thoughts and, like, it was – I remember, I’d always be like, “Hold on…” And I’d be writing stuff down or jotting notes, like, “I’ve got to capture that.” So, I always joked that you were my muse because I would always have my best ideas on our consults, but really because you were showing up with such insight and really thinking things through on a deep level and giving me that ability to go even deeper with my own coaching. So, I loved coaching you one on one. It was such a fun experience, I just have to say.

Lindsay: And now, five or six years later, do you sometimes think, “Oh my gosh, Lindsay, can you just stop thinking about this?”

Stacey: Yeah, your winning strategy – we talk about this in the $2 million group – sometimes becomes a thing that doesn’t work for you anymore.

Lindsay: Yeah, so I’m working on not overthinking all the things and having to understand them at a cellular level.

Stacey: But I don’t think it’s the coaching stuff. It’s like the sales and marketing stuff.

Lindsay: Yeah. So, okay, I want to come back to the question I was going to ask you. But while we’re here, I want to ask you about the consult that we had. So, this is what you teach your clients, right? You teach them how to do consults. You teach sales. You’re freaking amazing at it. And you have a sales background, so maybe tell them what that is really quickly. In case you don’t know.

Stacey: Yeah, if you don’t know, this girl, before she found coaching, was a professional pitch artist. Which means I sold all kinds of infomercial products all across the country. I always joke that I was pedaling mops in Walmart. And I was the best at it. It’s like the quirkiest little thing. I mean, when I say I was the best at it, I mean like top salesperson for like seven years in a row. I won trips and all the things. And I trained people all over the country.

And it’s just one of those things where once you develop a skillset to get 200 people in Walmart to come to your stage for a 20-minute show – everyone who shops in Walmart listening has seen one of these – to get them to all do what you say. And I’m talking about the people of Walmart to do what you say and watch your show for 20 minutes and then all buy at the same time, sometimes creating such a frenzy that people pass out from excitement or fight each other to be at the front of the show – that’s actually happened – that is a skillset that taught me so much about selling, influence, communication really, I would say. It taught me how to communicate with all the different folks of life.

Lindsay: I love it. And I love just envisioning that exact same metaphor for your business now. The frenzy you create, people fighting to be in the front. Basically you’re doing the same thing with coaches.

Stacey: I should teach a course on that, how to create a frenzy.

Lindsay: Oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had to coach on the frenzy happening in their mind.

Stacey: I hear that all the time. It’s so fantastic. I love it. But I also am a person – we’re getting really derailed, but I will say it’s 100% in integrity. I am also that person that gets in the frenzy. Neil always has to calm me down. When we bought our house, we were the first people to see it. We saw it the day it went on the market at 11am and I’m like, “I have to have this house. What do we do? What do we do?” We went in at $5000 over full-ask. I was like, “I don’t want anybody outbidding me on this house.” Like, I get so excited about buying stuff and I get really into things. So, in general, I have a lot of frenzy inside of me so it’s easy to create it for other people.

Lindsay: This is true. I was actually just thinking as you were talking, which I don’t even remember where we are, what the question is, which is totally fine. I was just thinking as you were talking, that one thing I’ve talked about on this podcast is how I had to work through learning to kind of find my own way of being as a coach…

Stacey: Yeah, because it’s not the same as mine…

Lindsay: Because I was so used to coaching with you and we are quite opposite. And I’ve just had a laugh in my head thinking about the people that are used to listening to my podcast right now might be thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is a lot. Maybe I have to listen later.”

Stacey: People always say that they listen to all podcasts on like one and a half speed, and they’re like, “Except Stacey’s.”

Lindsay: Not this one. If you play this one on one and a half, you better turn it down.

Stacey: And to be clear, I did not sleep very well last night so I’m actually very tired and subdued today.

Lindsay: Perfect, that’s just what I ordered.

Stacey: This is the subdued version of Stacey.

Lindsay: Okay, so I do want to come back to our first consult, or our only consult, because I was like, “Yeah, I’m in.” And I have a very vivid memory of getting on the consult with you and how that happened. And I think it really helped solidify a belief in me later on as a coach.

Stacey: Interesting, I can’t wait to hear it.

Lindsay: I know, I’m going to tell you what it is. But first, I want to ask you, what was your experience of that consult and what were your thoughts afterwards or before? Or is there anything that stands out to you that you remember?

Stacey: the only thing that stands out to me, I remember exactly where I was exactly. It’s so crazy. So, I used to be an actress and I was actually at an agency here in Kentucky. And I was on my way to a paid gig. I think it was a commercial or something. And in order to be there on time, I had to drive there an hour and a half early and sit in my car and do the consult. I think that was the time that worked for you.

So, I remember exactly where I was. I can feel me being in that exact same spot. Also, that was the day I realized I never wanted to act again, which was really fascinating. I had spent so many years putting myself out there and then I’m like, “Oh…” Like, I remember being at the event and being like, nothing about this compares at all to the feeling I just felt in my car for the last hour. I remember having that moment. I never did another audition. Never submitted for anything.

Lindsay: So, it’s my fault you’re not a famous actress? Is that what you’re saying?

Stacey: Yes.

Lindsay: Oh my, I don’t know if I can take that on. I’m sorry, world.

Stacey: I don’t have any desire to be a famous actress at this point now at all. It’s so funny because when I, sidenote, go to LCS events, everybody knows who I am. I’m really big in the community and really well-known. And it’s this weird tiny interaction with what it might be like to be famous. And I hate it. It’s terrible. I have so much anxiety. I’m like, “Oh my god, nobody ask me any questions. I’m socially awkward. I’m going to have a hard time conversating with you. Don’t look at people directly.”

Lindsay: Oh my gosh, the first – the first and only because it was right before the pandemic – Life Coach School event that I have been to, I remember you saying, “I’m just so glad you’re here.” And I think that’s probably part of it. I just walk around with you and talk to all the people so you don’t have to.

Stacey: Yeah. And it’s not because I don’t like people. It’s because I’m socially awkward.

Lindsay: That’s why I love you. Okay, so come back, come back, come back. You’re like a dog. I have to put you on a leash. Keep coming back.

Stacey: I don’t even remember. I think I was so nervous, I really don’t remember a lot of the consult. I just remember the end and talking to you about – I think you had to talk to your husband. So, I asked you the line, you know, what do you think he’ll say? And so, I remember talking about that. And I just remember – I think I was probably just so nervous and focusing so hard on just being in the call that I don’t remember a ton of it. I just remember how I felt on it and I remember everything it changed for me, regardless of whether you had said yes or not, that’s really all I remember. Sorry if that’s disappointing.

Lindsay: No, that’s not disappointing at all. What I just heard you say is I changed your entire life and you are welcome.

Stacey: Yes, thank you.

Lindsay: So, what I remember is especially even just before the consult, the way I found you, a friend of mine was one of your free clients, one of the clients you were working with, and she’s one of my best friends, and she is friends with your sister. And just one day, she mentioned…

Stacey: Best friend, she’s my sister’s best friend. Isn’t that crazy?

Lindsay: It was meant to be. I know that for sure. She just mentioned very casually one day, “So yeah, I’m working with a life coach.” And she just kept talking and I was like, “Wait, what are the words you just said? Rewind. You’re what?” I didn’t hear anything she said after that because I thought – it was just that moment. I was just having this time in my life where I was very confused, very lost, didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know what I wanted to be doing. And I knew that I needed maybe some guidance or help. That was already in my mind.

And I was thinking, I don’t think I need therapy, I don’t know, maybe I do. You know, just kind of a time in my life where it was like, what’s next, was where I was. And when she said that, it just struck me. It was like the moment I realized that real people can have coaches. You don’t have to be Oprah or, you know, someone famous to have a life coach. Like, what? My friend has a life coach. I can have a life coach.

And so, I said, “Oh my gosh, can I talk to her? Who is it?” Just 1000 questions. And she was like, “Yeah, I’ll ask her and I’ll get you her information.” I was like, “That is not going to work for me.” So, later that night, I stalked your sister on Facebook because I knew her name because she was best friends with my friend, and then I found out who you were on Facebook and I messaged you and we set up a call. And that forever, even when I started my business like a year and a half later or whatever, that memory just forever reminded me, like, I didn’t care of you had a website. I didn’t care who you worked with. I didn’t care any of the things. I also knew I was your first client, your first paying client, because my friend had told me that she was a free client.

Stacey: So, everybody has to hear that, how amazing that is. Because so many people are like, “Oh, this client wants to renew and they had a lower price before,” or, “I got a referral and they were a free client and I’m charging now,” and all this drama. It’s like, the client doesn’t care. They can know that you were coaching one person for free and still pay you. They’re willing to literally hunt your down on Facebook or anywhere else to get your information, to take action and get the help that they want. Like, that’s all they care about is, can you help me?

Lindsay: Yeah, it was such proof for me about do not worry about any of those things. Literally none of them matter. As you grow, yes, you’ll probably have a website. You’ll probably have need for a website at some point. Or you’ll have a niche. You’ll have all the things. But in the beginning, who cares. If people want to work with you, they will literally stalk your sister until they find you.

Stacey: Yes, and here’s what I will say. When I hired my first coach, she was working with our company in the same exact position I was in, so I knew she had a fulltime job. I met her at a grocery store in Denver and we just started chatting while we were working about coaching. And it was what she said – I was talking with her about my problems with my relationships and it was just what she said, I was like, “Oh, I’ve got to work with this person immediately.

I didn’t care about any of the other things. And I remember telling her in the car, I said, “Listen, I really want to be friends with you, but I also really want you to coach me. Would you be willing to coach me?” And I told her this exact thing. I said, “I don’t want to go out and look for other coaches because I’m afraid they won’t understand my problem the way you do and they won’t be able to help me the way you just did. Like, you get it so I want to work with you.”

So, it didn’t matter that she didn’t have a fulltime job. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a website either. I didn’t even look at other coaches. In fact, I actively said I’m not going to because I don’t trust them because you just established the trust with me with your ability to explain my problem and what the solution was and to say it in a really profound way to me. It was like a no BS this is what’s happening, and that was all that mattered.

Lindsay: Also, tell them about, since I’m obviously your best client and I always have been – I couldn’t help it…

Stacey: Of course…

Lindsay: Tell them what would happen when I knew we were getting close to the end of our contract. Do you remember? I think about this all the time too.

Stacey: I feel like you brought it up and you were like, “So, we’ve got to renew…”

Lindsay: Yeah, “What are your prices now? Tell me…”

Stacey: Yeah, you did always assume there would be a price increase, like, “Yeah, of course, it’s happening.” You were the easiest renewal always.

Lindsay: I was always down. Yep, I’m in, what else are you selling? I’ll buy it.

Stacey: Now, here’s what I want to say about my memory though of working with you. Because I don’t think I’ve ever said this to you and we’ve never talked about this in all of the conversations that we’ve had, that I think will be important…

Lindsay: There are zero tissues in here, so listen…

Stacey: It’s not super-emotional. But I do think this will be really important because I wrote it down while you were talking. I wanted to make sure I did not forget because I think it’s important for your listeners. You and then Lindsey Mango was my second client. And both of you at the time were in network marketing and I remember meeting – I went to a lot of things that you hosted. Like, I remember you hosted a Stella & Dot party. I went. You hosted some Rodan + Fields stuff. I went. You would go to other Rodan + Fields stuff, like if they’d have an event in Louisville, I’d come with you.

And I remember, we’ve already talked about how I identify as a socially awkward person. And I did so even more back then. Because I had this weird quirky job where I was a nomad basically for seven years traveling all over the country, all of my theatre friends in college stopped inviting me to stuff because I would just say, “Oh I’m traveling,” every time they did. So, I didn’t have very many friends. I didn’t have a very big network. My network was basically zero.

I had maybe one or two friends that were not ever going to buy coaching from me, right? So, I had no network. I think it’s important for people to know that. And I didn’t have a lot of friends and I didn’t feel like I had a lot of social skills. And then I met you and Lindsay, who were both such extroverts and have so many friends and are so likable. And I would watch you interact with people and I always, like, I just thought you guys were so cool and you had so many friends. I remember just being like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe these are my clients. They’re so cool. They’re so much cooler than me.”

And I just remember feeling so grateful that I had you in my life. And so, I’m saying this to say if anyone’s listening who also feels like an introvert who’s socially awkward with no network, like how could I ever be someone like these ladies that I’m listening to? But this is the thought that had me showing up and being willing to offer coaching to you and then to coach you and believe that I was the coach for you, was I remember – this is something Brooke told me when she taught the model at certification. She was like – and this is true whether you’re certified or not certified.

She said, “You have a tool…” this is the way she explained it, “You have a tool and that’s all you need. You don’t need to have more money than someone. You don’t need to have more experience than someone. You don’t need to have been through what they’ve been through. Nothing about your life matters at all. Nothing about who you are matters. Only the tool matters.”

Which I equivalate to, like, only the skill you have in coaching, that is the only thing that matters and that’s what you have to offer. You don’t have to offer how you’re killing it at life or how luxurious your life is or how amazing – like, I lived in a tiny apartment. I had no furniture. You’ve come to my apartment before. I didn’t have a lot of money. I think I had like an old Toyota I drove around, right? There wasn’t anything that I had. Like, I wasn’t more sociable than you or better at making friends than you or better at – I didn’t have any of that. But I had tools. I had all of these – and I had watched every Tony Robbins video ever known to man and woman ever.

For a whole year, everything that he had for free I gobbled up. I had studied Byron Katie. So, I had lots of different tools. I had my own mastery of having worked with my coach for at that point over a year. I had the model. I had so many – I don’t want people to get caught up in like the one tool. I had so many skills. The skill of coaching that I could lean on and nothing else about my life had to matter. I would just bring that to the call. Not my own advice. Not my own personality, but that.

And so, that was what always anchored me to, “I have value to offer this person, even though I think this person is so much cooler and she has a house, she’s married and has kids, has money…” It’s like you had all the things I wanted in life and then I had the one thing you didn’t have in life, which was the skill, at the time, to manage your brain and to live happier and fulfilled and with less anxiety.

And so, I just want everyone to hear that, this work that you do with your clients is so important because it’s really the only thing you need to coach people who have – they might have better jobs than you. They might have a lot more money than you. I remember signing clients that were like, had millions of dollars and I’m living in my little apartment driving my little Toyota, that I had that skill. I just think that’s so important to hear.

Lindsay: I love that you said that, and it does kind of segue into what I was actually going to ask you anyway, which is perfect, like you’re reading my mind. That was another belief or another thing that I learned from you that I didn’t realize in the moment, but later as I was building my business and starting to make money, I really realized – and I guess especially when I was thinking about this being my particular niche, helping people with their coaching skills, really be amazing at coaching. I remember, I knew all those things about you. You were very open about all the things I knew…

Stacey: I know, why do people try to lie about it? Don’t lie about it. You don’t need to when you have skill.

Lindsay: I knew you had two spoons. And I had a full drawer full. People who don’t know you are like, “What?”

Stacey: I had two spoons. I remember actually, I was just in Cabo with Courtney and Courtney was like, “Remember…” because I coached Courtney for like 18 months and she was like, “Do you remember? I remember being at your house when you ordered a new set of silverware and it was from West Elm and it was such a big deal.”

Lindsay: So fun. I wish I could have been there for that moment. Why didn’t you invite me to order the silverware?

Stacey: I don’t know. I’m sorry.

Lindsay: But here is, like, how it kind of happened for me was I remember, I knew these things about you. Because we were very open about it. Like you said, we would be around each other a lot. You lived in Kentucky. I lived in Indiana, but sometimes you would drive up and we would go to networking events…

Stacey: Oh, because my sister lives in Indianapolis. That’s another side story. She is friends with – so, Lindsay is friends with my sister’s best friend. They live close to each other. They all live in Indianapolis. And at the time, I was still pitching and I was working every other week in Indianapolis. So, I was like living with my sister basically every other week. So, for me, it’s a two-hour drive. This is also something people should hear.

I would drive two hours, three hours, four hours to go to any party, any networking event, anything that got me in front of people not network. And really, it wasn’t even anything to get me in front of people to sell. It was like anything to get me in front of people to practice being who I wanted to be and offering value and just getting out and talking to people. So, I would come to networking events with you all the time.

Lindsay: Which is so fun, after what you just said, because I used to think you did that just because I was your client and you were like helping me, but actually it’s because you’re like, “Lindsay’s going to talk to all the people and I’ll just walk around with her.” Not really…

Stacey: Yes, while trying to get some words out.

Lindsay: You were also amazing at it. But what I remember is at one point you invited me down to Louisville. And I don’t even remember why now. But I remember coming into your apartment and thinking, “Oh, she wasn’t exaggerating. This is a very tiny apartment.”

Stacey: Very old tiny apartment. I remember, I hired Macey to try to decorate it and she told me years later that she walked in and was like, “Why doesn’t she just move? It would be much easier.”

Lindsay: It’s so good.

Stacey: I didn’t move from that apartment, by the way, until I had made over $300,000 because I didn’t want to take the time away from growing my business to look for an apartment, to move, and I didn’t want to take any more money away from my business baby, just for everybody to hear. Just dropping the truth bombs.

Lindsay: Listen, the first 100K is just getting started. Don’t make any big changes because you think you’ve made it then. That is not true.

Stacey: That was a truth bomb. Boom. Think you’ve made it at 100K? Nope. Keep going.

Lindsay: Put all that money back into your business and just keep going.

Stacey: That’s what you did so beautifully. You are the best example of taking a business for three years, four years, and not taking any profit out of it. Not saying that you should do that…

Lindsay: Right, some people don’t have that option.

Stacey: Yeah, I didn’t have that. I didn’t have the partner to help m pay so I had to take money out for myself. But being willing to say I’m going to take only what I have to and invest everything over and over and over, it’s of course why you’re where you are right now.

Lindsay: Yes, and I was also willing to keep running my other business. Because why not have two businesses, right? Kind of like being willing to keep working a job until you are making money in your business, I was willing to keep making money in another business so that I could pay for the bills and whatever that I was supposed to be contributing. Not supposed to, but that we had decided this is what I’m going to pay.

Okay, but what I remember is thinking, “Oh, she was not kidding. This apartment is tiny.” And my thought in that moment was, “I feel like most people would be self-conscious or embarrassed,” or some form of whatever. And maybe you were. I don’t know.

Stacey: I don’t think I was.

Lindsay: I mean, my impression was that you were not. And it was such a moment of growth for me to just step into that apartment and just see you be totally fine with it, knowing how different our lives were at that point.

Stacey: Yeah, I just remember being like – this was probably before that moment. But I remember building my business early in, being in Michigan with an ex-boyfriend at the time, and having a negative bank account. Like, I was investing in my business more than sometimes I had, always scraping by to make that coaching payment or whatever.

And I remember looking at my negative bank account, and it was probably the moment that created that moment with you where I remember saying, “I could live in a box and be happy with these coaching tools. I have the secret to the universe and from this moment on, I don’t need any material things to make me happy.” And I released all judgment about myself not having the things I think – and also, it was like that click and that understanding that that material wealth or having the material things didn’t equate to happiness.

And at that point, I’d been working with so many clients who did have money and who weren’t where they wanted to be that I was like, “I don’t have everything, but I have this thing.” It goes back to, “I have this skill.”

Lindsay: Do you think that as you were coaching me, because obviously what I help my clients with is helping them be able to coach any client on anything. I say that all the time. And when I think about you, you coached me on literally everything. Like, probably every single topic that we could come up with right, you coached me on it. And in so many ways, your life was so different because you coached me on my husband and you weren’t married. You coached me on my kids and you didn’t have kids.

I mean, it was just all the things. And do you think it was just that one thought? Or was there anything else that went into it that made you kind of just be able to do that?

Stacey: I really think it was just that thought. And it’s the difference of some people don’t understand, they think coaching is like – they’re like, “I give a lot of people advice and they think it’s really good so I should be a coach.” And coaching isn’t advice, right? Which is why – you would never take advice from someone about your kids that doesn’t have kids, right? But when I’m coaching you and I’m just focusing on your mind, showing you what your mind is offering you and allowing you to choose what you’re going to do and how you’re going to think and how you want to feel, when I’m not giving any sort of manual for you of how you should do things or telling you what to do, that’s the biggest difference.

Because if I were telling you what to do and giving you advice, that would definitely have brought up, like, “I’m not qualified.” But if I’m just showing you your mind and using a tool with you, I don’t need to have any of the same similar experiences because it’s not about my experience. It’s about your experience.

Lindsay: Yeah, that makes me laugh actually because if I think about you now and I separate out Stacey my coach and I just have Stacey my friend, I would never take parenting advice from you.

Stacey: Now I need to know why. I’m offended. I’m going to be a great mom.

Lindsay: You are going to be a great mom. But how many times have a said to you, “I can’t wait until you have kids?” Not because I’m excited for you to actually have the kids, but for you to know how hard it is sometimes.

Stacey: Listen, I know, I have dogs, duh, obviously it’s the same.

Lindsay: Oh man, half the people just turned off the podcast, I think.

Stacey: I’m joking. I do remember at one point, who was it? One of my clients was like, “You should definitely stop telling dog stories when you’re teaching about coaching concepts with children. It might have been you…

Lindsay: No, it wasn’t me. I remember someone saying that and I thought, “Well, I see what you’re saying. But that’s okay for her to believe that for now.”

Stacey: I remember someone was like, “You should definitely not do that. It’s definitely not the same.”

Lindsay: Interesting. And I do believe it’s obviously not the same, but it’s so weird I can’t remember who it was, but I do remember thinking when that happened, like, “No, it’s so cute. Just let her believe that for now.”

Stacey: Also, we need to just clarify that I am a crazy dog mom. It’s not your average – like, I’m a little bit insane. I don’t know what I’m going to be like with kids. It might be a little bit scary. I might be, like, the most helicopter parent ever.

Lindsay: I don’t know if it’s a little different. Because you did just tell me that your dogs are a little sick because maybe you gave them too many cupcakes.

Stacey: Listen, they’re doggy cupcakes. It’s fine. Actually, Neil did that. I gave them one to celebrate Bear’s birthday and then Neil bought them another one like two days later. And she also ate a little of Bear’s. She eats the whole cupcake in two bites and then she comes over and she’s like, “Bear, let me have some of yours, obviously.”

Lindsay: Bear’s my favorite ever.

Stacey: Okay, so listen, I’m going to get us back on track this time. And I remembered, so I wrote it down, the question that you asked earlier that you couldn’t remember what we were talking about. Which was, people always ask, how can you be friend with your coach?

Lindsay: Yes, I was just going to circle back. Read my mind again.

Stacey: Let’s do it. What’s the actual question?

Lindsay: Okay, so when people find out that we’re such good friends, they hear me talk about you or hear you talk about me, one question I get a lot is just how can you be such good friends with someone who coaches you? Do you still take her coaching as seriously? Or some form of that question. Can you still show up with her as your coach? I have my answer and I’ve actually kind of talked about it before because I had Sherri on the podcast, who’s one of my best friends from college. But what is your answer for that?

Stacey: I feel like that could be an entire podcast.

Lindsay: I know. You do come to me for coaching sometimes. You’ll call me and say, “Okay…”

Stacey: This is the perfect thing for that. So, I message Lindsay all the time. We have a running joke. I remember when I messaged you one time, I was like, “I need coaching.” And you were like, “I have calls all day. And I responded, “Gross. What are you doing? You need to be there for me all the time.”

But this was the thought that I think allows us to do that is I see you as a colleague. And I don’t see me as like above you. There’s a lot of coaches teaching this hierarchy thing and I don’t subscribe to that. We’re all colleagues and we just have this tool to show each other our minds, first of all.

And second of all, I don’t think – there’s a lot of coaches too that think they have to be perfect and that they ca never have drama and they can never show their clients that drama. They don’t have that willingness to be vulnerable. And I’m like, obviously I’m crazy. I have a human mind like you. I have all the crazy things happen to me. I’ve all the drama. I don’t need to shield that or hide that from you and having it doesn’t discredit my ability to help you and coach you and to teach you the things that I know. I’m much better at business coaching.

I was joking with Bev, my coach, the other day and I was like, “I’m so glad I don’t coach people on their life. I feel like I’m terrible at it now.” Like, I just want to stay in my business lane. I’m so good at that. I think we were talking about family drama and I’m like, “God, I’m so glad I don’t coach people on their families anymore.” I just think, like, it’s fine. We don’t need to reach this level of – what’s the word – enlightenment where you are just perfect in order to be coaching people and you don’t have to show that level of perfection in all of your coaching.

So, I think that’s a big part of it, is I’m not making my drama mean anything about me and my value or skill or ability to help you. And I don’t see myself as, like, above you or in any sort of chain that’s higher up. I see us as equal, so why wouldn’t I ask you for coaching?

Lindsay: Yeah, I actually just wrote – I have questions written out, I told you, which we’ve gotten to like one of them; it’s fine. And I wrote under that, which isn’t actually a question. I just wrote the word humanness. But I think that’s what it is. Just the ability to show your humanness. Obviously, I’m a human and being a coach doesn’t make me not have a human brain.

Stacey: Yeah, I will say that is, like when we had my bachelorette party, my virtual one, that was one thing that everybody said about me, is that they can feel however they want to feel and be whoever they want to be around me and it’s always okay. And I just think that’s, to me, what I’ve understood and learned the most from my coach Brooke and the Life Coach School teachings is the idea that life is 50-50 and the goal is not to be happy all of the time and the goal is not to be perfect all of the time.

Like, I want to still be – even though I’m a coach – a human in the human experience doing all the human things. So, like, I want to have the family drama. Maybe not as much as I do sometimes. But I want to be a human and have human reactions. And I will say, the only – we were just talking about this last night with Claire’s birthday party, it’s like the people that I feel like I’m able to be friends with that are my clients as a coach, those people are the people I feel like I can trust my humanness with and they won’t freak out and make it mean anything about me and my ability to help them or they won’t – because sometimes, you can get kind of, what do we call that? Stary-eyed with your coach. And when you’re like that and you’re expecting them to be perfect and you’re expecting them to be your guru, it’s very hard to be real and human with them.

And so, when you’re having this more colleague type relationship, it doesn’t mean you don’t take their coaching and listen to everything they say and be a great student and allow yourself to be vulnerable and get help. It just means that you’re not deciding that this person is the guru of your life and is somehow this enlightened individual that is perfect and you should do everything exactly like them.

It’s easier when people are just allowing you to be human. That’s the people I can be friends with and the people that we have natural connections with. And I just don’t force it. I also came from kind of this early coaching experience of, like, learning that you had to be friends with all of your clients and you need to be all up in their lives. And I’m like, that doesn’t work for me. I have a natural connection with some people and not others and I’m not going to force that just because they’re paying me. I don’t want our relationship to ever be attached to a financial arrangement.

And I told you and Lindsey both that very early on. I was like, “Listen, if you ever stop paying me, we will still be friends, like, if you don’t want to coach with me anymore.” And I also wanted to make that boundary really clear, that the relationship isn’t attached to us working together, which is also, for a coach, super-important. You have to do your own work on that.

Lindsay: It’s really interesting how many clients I have had come to me, and mostly in my mastermind, who say things like, “I can’t even coach my friends so what does that mean about my coaching?” And I think that’s so interesting because I’m always like, “Wait, what? No, coaching someone in your family or someone who is a really close friend can actually, especially in the beginning, be a little tricker than coaching a total stranger.

Stacey: We weren’t friends in the beginning. I didn’t know you. I think it would be hard for me to coach anyone that I knew prior. And it still is. If someone comes to me and asks for advice, I can feel myself kind of tiptoeing and, like, I don’t want to make this person mad at me. Because there is this, when you’re coaching and you’re really coaching, you have to be willing to risk the relationship and say the really hard thing and let the person be mad. And I’m just less willing to do it if it’s like someone that I really love dearly and I don’t want them to be necessarily mad at me.

It makes me think. It requires extra effort and I just prefer to do it with people. If we become friends along the way, that’s amazing. But I don’t think anyone should ever strive to coach their friends or family. It’s a bad idea.

Lindsay: I do have a mastermind for that if you ever find that this becomes a real problem. You know that you can just hit me up.

Stacey: I will say – you said earlier… I have to just be clear. You are a really great student. You and Lindsey both are amazing students. But I will say, anytime Michelle asks me or brings me, “There’s someone who’s being a little difficult,” or someone that is asking for special exceptions or someone – so, if it’s someone asking for special exceptions it’s Mango. And if it’s someone who hasn’t turned their work in, it’s you. And I’m always like, “I know exactly who it is. You don’t even need to tell me.

Lindsay: Guilty, yes.

Stacey: So, there’s a little of, like, you guys don’t have quite the same fear that other people have. But that’s not a problem. I don’t care.

Lindsay: You know what I think is so powerful about it though is in that instance, what it becomes is I have to show up for me, not for you. Which is actually a different – I can’t use the, like, I’m not intimidated by my coach. I don’t have this, “Oh gosh, Stacey’s going to be mad at me…” No thoughts about that ever. It’s fine.

Stacey: If you’re one of my clients listening, I’m just saying…

Lindsay: She’s mad at you all the time. Just assume it.

Stacey: Just assume I’m always mad.

Lindsay: But it kind of creates this different power dynamic that works for me because it is something I’ve had to work on since I’ve started my business is just being accountable just to be accountable for myself.

Stacey: And to be clear, we’re joking. But again, it goes back to the hierarchy thing. If you have a coach who has this hierarchy ego concept with themselves as a coach, they would be mad if people didn’t do what they said versus – and when I say do what they say, like, we have standards in the mastermind that Lindsay is in. We do revenue reporting and stuff like that, that’s not like do what I say as a coach, or whatever.

But there are people that would be mad about that. And to me, that’s like, I’m never going to be mad about that. If it were a chronic problem where someone wasn’t attending class, I might say something. If you weren’t attending class, we would have a conversation. But there’s no ego also involved, so it’s mostly just me and Michelle have a good laugh about it.

Lindsay: It’s a Lindsay every time. Okay, let’s see, this is just kind of a question to follow up on us being friends. People ask me this all the time too. What do we actually talk about? So, we chat most days, or at least text.

Stacey: I feel like we do a lot of – yeah, we talk almost every day. You tell me, but I feel like we do a lot of intellectual sparring.

Lindsay: Yeah, sometimes. I would say that’s in the top three of things we talk about.

Stacey: Yeah, I mean, we joke a lot too, but I do feel like you and I will go round and round with our thoughts about something. It could be anything. All the things.

Lindsay: All the things. I think we always have though. That’s kind of what our coaching relationship was, even in the beginning when you were coaching me and it was always this back and forth of talking through a concept or just very meta conversations. People probably think they’re very exciting, and they’re probably not really.

Stacey: Yeah, they’re very geeky. Like, we have some very geeky conversations about the mind and psychology and all of the things. And then you also, you know, there’s a lot of back and forth. She texts Neil all the time and they have this other little thing and then sometimes I get in that too. So, there’s a little bit of fun couples joking going on.

Lindsay: I would say that Neil and I are probably more alike than you and I are.

Stacey: Really?

Lindsay: Yeah.

Stacey I could see that. Tell me why you say that.

Lindsay: We have some major differences. But personality-wise, just kind of he’s a little more calm than you are.

Stacey: you guys are both also really slick and sarcastic…

Lindsay: That’s our love for each other, I think, is just the snark. Sometimes I’m like, I can’t even send this to Stacey, she won’t get it. Neil will.

Stacey: He used to leave snarky messages when you get PayPal payments for teaching in 2K and I’m like, “Neil, this is a business. What are you doing?” He’s like, “Lindsay doesn’t care.” And I’m like, “Just, when it’s company stuff, keep it on the up and up, please.”

Lindsay: So good. I can’t even remember what he would say…

Stacey: He’d be like, “I’m eating ice cubes tonight but you got your payment.”

Lindsay: Yes, “Canned tuna, again, fifth day in a row for lunch, but as long as Lindsay is paid…”

Stacey: Like, “Neil, you don’t talk to anybody else that way, do you?” And he’s like, “No, just Lindsay.”

Lindsay: One day he said, I think, “How many pairs of jeans are you going to buy with that money?”

Stacey: So ridiculous. I have to rein him in sometimes. He does that with Michelle a little bit sometimes too.

Lindsay: It’s been a while. I miss it. We might have to reinstate that.

Stacey: What do you think we talk about?

Lindsay: I think the main thing, we talk about dogs and…

Stacey: Wedding stuff a lot. Lots of wedding drama.

Lindsay: Wedding stuff, yes

Stacey: Family drama. My family drama. Your family drama. A little bit of that.

Lindsay: A little bit. You have your own coach now though so you don’t text me as much about that anymore. Only when it’s a real emergency.

Stacey: Yeah, I do a lot of deep coaching with Bev on the family stuff.

Lindsay: What else? We used to text about vacations. But now you’re like, whatever, you’re not leaving your house so it’s fine, I’ll wait.

Stacey: I stopped inviting you. I’m done.

Lindsay: Someday. Yeah, that’s really about it. Dog pictures, kid pictures, weird memes.

Stacey: I ask Harper if I should buy things, like if this Fendi purse is in stye or does this work, how would I carry it…

Lindsay: Yeah, remember that purple one, she was like, “Yep, that’s the one.”

Stacey: And remember the bucket one, I was like, do you wear it on your shoulder? And she’s like, “You carry it by the straps, obviously.”

Lindsay: Yeah, and then there was one in that same conversation that you said you asked the same thing and I showed it to her. Do you remember this? I said, “How do you think you wear this one.” And she said, “You don’t.”

Stacey: Oh yes.

Lindsay: I don’t even remember what it looked like but she just said, “You don’t.” To be clear, this is an eight-year-old. She was probably seven at the time, who knows? So funny.

Stacey: Alright, what else you got? I’m reading through your list. Did we get to all of them? You said you had a whole page and I think you asked me three.

Lindsay: I know. But I think in some way we’ve covered all of it.

Stacey: Great, you’re welcome.

Lindsay: Thank you. You’re amazing. Is there anything else you want to say or that you think we left out?

Stacey: No, I’m good. Although I will say, I do think it’s interesting. You said something at the beginning and I just want to comment because it’s so true. You were like – what did you say? “I teach people how to coach anyone on anything.” And I always say that I teach people how to sell any offer to anyone.

It’s like we literally – I always say coaching is selling and selling is coaching. I love that we do the same thing but in completely different ways. I love that our clients always end up at the exact same result, which is so fun, right?

And I will acknowledge you. Just hold what you were going to say. What I’m going to say is better. Zipped lips. I do want to acknowledge you because I will say we have a lot of different clients. We don’t have a ton of crossover. But I will have some of your clients apply for 200K and they always get in, for the most part, because they’re so amazing. Their minds are so well-managed. I can always tell when someone has worked with you and been in your mastermind. They are more self-aware. They’re more coachable. They take the work so much deeper and they’re so much more prepared for the clients they have and the money they want to make.

Because if you can’t handle the clients you have now, you’re not going to make more money. It’s going to be really hard to make more money. But when you are mastering the coaching with the clients that you have now, you will always exponentially expand your financial revenue, your goals. And so, I just want to acknowledge you for that, that I’m always so thrilled if I do happen to have a Lindsay Dotzlaf client. They’re always stellar.

Lindsay: I love that. That just feels like the biggest compliment ever, which is not even really about me. It’s about them. And I just love thinking – because I get a lot of clients, I would say, that come into my mastermind that are very, they have kind of a frantic energy and I attract a lot of people who are kind of hard on themselves. Shocking, I know. And who really pressure themselves and they’re looking for that measurement of the feedback which you don’t get a lot of on coaching calls, like feedback in the moment from your client, unless you have a client who’s very vocal with feedback.

And they have kind of like a panicky, like, “This feels bad. I’m making money and I’m scared to make more because it feels bad. And if I grow my business, it’s just going to feel more and more bad.” And so, yeah. That’s not all the clients. But there is a subsect of my mastermind that is just a chunk of those people and I can just spot them every time and it’s like, “Okay, the first thing we’re going to do is calm your brain down. That’s number one. And then we’re going to work on coaching. We’re going to show you that you are already actually a really good coach. You just have to believe it.” And then you make all the money.

Stacey: So, I think it’s like – I’m just going to sell your mastermind for a minute here. I think for everyone listening, if you are not in Lindsay’s mastermind, how you know what route I need to take is if you look at your clients that you have and they’re getting results, they’re loving the process, they’re showing up, you feel extremely confident to handle every single call that comes your way, if that’s not what’s happening, you need to get in Lindsay’s mastermind and learn that because it will be the number one thing that keeps you from making money, 100%.

It’s the same concept of, like, if you can’t manage the money you have now, you’ll never make more. If you can’t manage the client load that you have and get them excellent results, you’ll never get more clients. Because that is the one thing about my business, as I grew it, I had only you and Lindsey for a long time. It was just like two clients that I remember thinking…

Lindsay: And then I told every person I know about you.

Stacey: Yeah, but I think it’s from the thought, like, I never asked you from, referrals. It was from the thought, “I only have two clients. I want to have 10 or 20. I’m going to give my two clients everything I’ve got. I’m going to give them the energy of 20 clients. I’m going to show up. I’m going to overdeliver. And that doesn’t mean hustle for them. But I’m really going to treat them like I want to treat 20 clients and I’m going to go all in and I’m going to be the best coach for them and because that was your experience, you were like, “Hey, can you do a workshop and teach all of my team or teach all of my friends?” And Lindsey did that. And all of a sudden, I was getting all the referrals.

And by the way, I love now that all of my audience is working – not all of them, but you’re getting clients from my audience as well. Lindsey is as well. It feels like this beautiful circle of life of my business was very much built on both of your networks and so I love – we’ll have to have you on my podcast to sell your program. That’s next on the list.

Lindsay: You know, I just had a huge realization as you were talking, which feels so fun. So, I’m just going to say it in case anyone hears this and thinks, “Oh my gosh, wait, I am doing that.”

One thing I notice a lot of coaches, when they come into my mastermind, one sign that they feel that they don’t think they’re doing a great job coaching or they don’t feel confident with their coaching is they’re trying to manipulate their business in a weird way to get out of it. Like, “I’ll just start groups because that will be better, because I won’t have to coach one on one.”

And sometimes, that is appropriate. There is a time to start a group. But I just realized that that is what a lot of people do. They’re either changing their niche or tweaking something and it’s for that reason. It’s because it feels bad.

Stacey: Yeah, it’s like, this is another good one, if you don’t feel energized by eight calls in a row. Like, if you leave eight calls in a row and feel exhausted, if you leave one call and feel exhausted. Like, I just coached someone in 200K that is like, “There’s no way I could have 20 clients because I’m so drained for the eight clients I have.” So, situations like that if you think group will be easier, I’m like, oh my god, my coaching skill is so strong that it requires, at this point, no energy, no thought. It’s the easiest part of my day every day. I could literally wake up and get on a coaching call and coach hundreds of people at the same time and it’s just my habitual way of thinking now. And that really comes from mastering coaching skills, 100%.

It’s the number one thing you should focus on. You have to learn how to sell. I have to vie for what I teach. You have to know how to sell or you’ll never get clients. But you have to know how to coach them too or they will quit and you will lose them. And if you do know how to coach them and take care of them well, they will tell everyone about you and you won’t have to do he creepy thing of asking them for referrals. It will be their idea because they’re so blown away by the experience of working with you.

Lindsay: So true. And I really do remember telling every single person that I knew, “Oh my gosh, I’m working with a coach. You have to hire her right now. Here’s her information. Here’s everything. Just trust me. Just do it.” Because I was so obsessed with the results I was getting and so just blown away by your coaching.

Stacey: Yeah, I love it.

Lindsay: Alright, to wrap this up, where can people find you if they don’t know?

Stacey: Where can they find me? They can find me at staceyboehman.com…

Lindsay: You’re like, “I don’t know. My people handle that.”

Stacey: Ask my people. Michelle knows. Okay, staceyboehman.com. You can also listen to the podcast, Make Money as a Life Coach and I have to programs, 2K and 200K. You can’t join the $2 Million Group unless you join 200K. So, you can go on the podcast. You’ll see all of the programs I offer, listen to the podcast, do all the things.

Lindsay: This was so fun. Thank you so much.

Stacey: You’re the only client that’s ever invited me on the podcast. People are scared to.

Lindsay: I know. When I asked you, I assumed people had. And so when I asked, I thought, “She’s probably going to say no.” And then I was like, “Whatever. I’m Lindsay…”

Stacey: Other people are scared. They just don’t do it. Or they’re like, “What does she know?” I don’t know.

Lindsay: Just wait until after this comes out. Michelle is going to be like, “Stacey, what did you do?”

Stacey: I was just thinking that. I was like, “I want to go on Claire’s podcast and talk about relationships. I want to go on Danielle’s and talk about sex. I’m like, I don’t want to talk about business.” I would, but I’m like, I really want to go on a bunch of podcasts and talk about the things I’m interested in that aren’t business. That feels so fun to me.

Lindsay: I love it. Well, we’re starting a series on here. We’re going to have you on once a month. I’m just kidding. I have to let you go. It has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Stacey: Thank you for having me.

Lindsay: So fun.

Stacey: Alright, talk to you soon.

Lindsay: Bye.

Stacey: Bye.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program, where you’re going to make your first $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.

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