We talk a lot about how to be awesome and powerful and all of those things as a business owner. How to attract the best clients, serve them well, earn a great living, and create a lifestyle of freedom.
We do exercises to help us visualize the impact we can have by getting out of our own way and daring to be seen.
At least I’ve done a lot of this … have you?
This is a fantastic way to activate our intuition. To do the thing we are afraid of, our “why” must become greater than our fear. Visualizing what happens for our clients when we choose to show up is a great way to get present to that, right?
But what about what happens for your coach?
Often I notice in this world of ‘coaches who coach coaches to coach coaches,’ even though we are high-minded and ‘awake’ and feel like we ‘do the work,’ we can run into an issue when it comes to investing in coaching. We view it as transactional. I give you money, you give me this. And if it is “a lot” of money, then people tend to get real critical, continually looking at whether that transaction is fair or even.
Now, I have definitely seen a lot of coaches who have grown their business so quickly that perhaps the exchange does feel a bit off balance when the groups get larger and the personal contact gets lower, so I do get how a logical person could think that in some scenarios.
Something that is unique about me, and a reason I believe I’ve created success for myself and remained relatively in alignment throughout my business, is that I have never viewed it this way.
(I say ‘relatively’ in alignment because if you haven’t noticed, alignment is a journey rather than a destination and we are always in motion around it! :))
So if purchasing business coaching (or any kind of coaching) is not a transaction, what it is?
I recently experienced the loss of a past client who did not survive heart surgery two weeks ago. I attended her celebration of life service in Oregon this weekend. I began to realize during the service that I may have known this woman better than any other person in that room. I knew her vision and her dreams, I knew where she stopped herself. I knew how her human mind related to the life she had created, and I knew the journey her soul was on and the challenges that her soul had created that made her mission so special.
(If you are the kind of coach that I am, you get what I mean by this).
As I was reflecting on how grateful I was that I’d had the right community and container of support for her to step into and become more of who she was before she passed, I immediately had another thought.
She stepped in to MY life in divine right timing to pass the wisdom of HER life on to someone who could get it before she passed.
Rhonda Simpson, MD, was leaving the traditional medical world as she found the work of coaching to be MORE healing than medicine. She discovered her Clarity Point (a stage of the work that I do with people) which was “Connection is Healing, and Healing is Connection.” I personally believe this 100%. The way she phrased it as we worked to focus her coaching business hit home for me in a big way. This is also my mission… to be a space for people connect and heal.
This is the power and beauty of the work we do. If your STAR Clients are coaches, and you also have a coach, and you’ve ever wondered the value of this ‘coaching’ lifestyle where we pass money around as we all grow, this is it.
We are banding together and through our work of being a coach AND our work of being a client, we are collecting experiences and insight and wisdom that we can pass on to others. We can gather confidence and certainty and wisdom and insight that empower us to impact the world at large (which is calling for this kind of love and grounded power).
Here is one example of this – my former client (years ago former) published this article this week about how her coaching investment has impacted her ability to hold space as a parent:
We coaches are infiltrating mainstream society in so many ways! It delights my soul! And there’s further to go.
And this, this, is exactly why I cheerfully pay my coach (and all of my past coaches, whatever they charge). In the beginning of this journey I thought transactionally about what I was ‘getting,’ yet the first time I invested 5-figures in a group program, something in me knew it was about more than the details of what I would get and what they would give. It was about being a part of my coach’s mission and to learn and connect along the way.
I am 100% OK with flowing my money and sharing all the vulnerable and quirky parts of myself with a person who I know will do good with it. If my coach takes my $50K and uses it to fly around the world first class, with a personal chef and an on-call bodyworker, fantastic! Because I know 100% that she is pondering principles that change lives while she does it.
If my coach is not 100% perfect all of the time, even though I am paying her “a lot of money,” I am totally OK with that too, because I understand transformation, and breakdown and breakthrough are a part of the journey to becoming more wholly who we are.
If she doesn’t encounter and navigate her own ‘breakdowns,’ how will she be able to guide me through mine? In the Anatomy of a Transformation that I teach, the breakdown, or sticky spots of life, are simply opening us to surrender to the truth we’ve not yet seen. They are a necessary part of the growth curve. I want her to have them too.
So I’m curious, if you stop and look, what kind of client are you?
Sure, there are the obvious ideas that what we bring in is a mirror for what we put out. The better client we are… paying on time, showing up to calls on time and fully present, trusting our coach with our truth, etc., the better clients we’ll attract. Period.
If we resist our own growth, judge our coach, or withhold our truth by challenging our coach to really pull it out of us, trying to get them to want it more than we want it for ourselves, well, hello, we’ll attract that!
That’s LOA 101.
But what if it was about more than not being an asshole?
What if you viewed your cheerful participation in the coach economy, not just your money flow but your information flow, and the flow of your openness, willingness, empowerment, and vulnerability, as a part of the big picture mission that we are all on together? What would THAT open up?
What if every time you considered holding back and waiting, you simply shared, or asked?
What if instead of being on guard about whether you’re getting what you paid for, you asked yourself, how does my being a better client… more engaged, more courageous, more open in my LIFE and my coaching relationship… contribute to the bigger mission? How does my money flowing to this person or business actually cement my stake in the ground that this type of work matters in the world?
How does more money in the hands of a coach who makes the INC 500 because of that money allow the world at large to take our industry seriously pave the way for MORE PEOPLE to hire YOU!?
When we’re in fear, we don’t consider these things.
Because of something in the way my brain is wired, I ALWAYS see the big picture of things. (Blessing and curse, am I right?)
And because I’ve studied and believe in energy above all, I have always understood that the energy exchange is a two way street.
And I’ve been an awesome client.
Yet at times I’ve allowed clients to not be awesome to me! If you have too, see my recent post “I’m No Longer Available For That.”
That’s right it goes both ways! (Not allowing clients into your energy field who have a less than building effect is the other side to this story).
Now, a note on alignment…
This whole conversation applies when you are hiring a coach who aligns with your values, and your inner knowing has called you to work with them. It’s a clear “yes,” and you are choosing their container of support from a place of love for your mission and yourself.
If you have found that you’ve hired a coach or selected a container of support from a place of fear, worrying that you may miss out, or any other thought or energy that has you feeling bad about yourself, that is different.
Even THEN, be an amazing client and talk to your coach about this! Work it out in partnership in a way that grows you both. They may not even know what’s going on with you, or how you interpreted their offer or how you made your decision to hire them. If you chose from fear, your ego was doing the choosing.
Before you get upset, shame yourself, and bail, talk to your coach. A great coach will be able to hear you and guide you to sort through your ego’s need to stay safe and your soul’s desire to expand, and help you reframe and choose from a place of clarity. They will not be attached or defend or make you wrong. If they do, you have your answer about your alignment. You may not be ready for them yet, or they may not be ready for you yet. Either way an awesome client communicates, asks for what they need, and honors their agreements.
Some of the very best transformations I’ve experienced as both a coach and a client have come from honest discussions about the coaching relationship, which is a beautiful and ideally safe mirror of what you attract and create in your life. Used artfully, it furthers both people, and the work of transformation at large.
So thank you Rhonda for being an amazing client. As a result the impact of who you were in the world will live on in me and those I touch. Thank you.
A flourishing business with amazing clients requires continual alignment. 5 key questions guide you in our Entrepreneurs Alignment Tune Up. Opt in here: