Ep #308: Working as a Coach

Brooke Castillo: You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode 308.

Male Announcer: Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Brooke Castillo: Hello, my friends!

Lisa Hatlestad: Hello.

Mimi Porter: Hello.

Brooke Castillo: I am so happy that you are all here today. I am doing an amazing podcast today on working as a life coach. Now, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about – this is what actually the questions sound like, “Hey, can I jump on the phone with you for an hour and talk to you about being a life coach? I’m thinking about becoming a life coach. Will you talk to my friend about becoming a life coach?” Or, “My sister wants to become a life coach, will you jump on the phone and talk to her for an hour about whether it’s a good investment?”

I would be happy to do this if I didn’t get this request seriously so many times a day. Our industry is growing so fast, so many people are so interested in being life coaches that I decided I was going to record podcasts to answer all of the questions that you guys might have about working as a life coach, being an entrepreneur as a life coach, and then I’m also recording one about my whole business model and how I built my business.

But today what this podcast is about is working as a life coach. So, I’ve invited some of my friends on to the podcast today to talk about their careers working as a life coach without owning their own business, without running their own business necessarily. Some of them are doing both. Some of them have a business and they’re working for a corporation and some of them are just working for corporations.

The reason I wanted to do this podcast is I wanted you to know you don’t have to have your own business if you want to be a life coach. There are so many people that are asking me daily if you have a coach that I can hire that will come work for me in my organization and I’m always referring people out. These guys are really making it happen.

So, I invited them on to talk to you. I’m going to ask them all questions about what it’s like. I’m going to ask them the hard questions, they’re very nervous about it, but one of the things that I wanted to share with you all, I asked my assistant to pull the states for me before we got on and currently we have 50 coaches working at The Life Coach School and between all of them we will pay them out $2.5 million this year.

I’m like, “What?!” That is so awesome. So, for those of you who know that my big dream is to change this industry to get life coaches working I can’t even tell you how excited that stat made me and how excited I am to have so many coaches working at The Life Coach School. And so many coaches who come through training at The Life Coach School that go on to work for other coaches.

Let’s just dive in. Let’s talk about what it’s like to work as a life coach when you don’t necessarily have your own business, when you’re working for someone else and let’s talk about maybe the decision to do that, so let’s start with you, Lisa.

Lisa Hatlestad: Sure. Hi, Brooke.

Brooke Castillo: Hi. Introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are and then talk a little bit about your career.

Lisa Hatlestad: Yeah, absolutely. I’m Lisa Hatlestad. I’m a Master Certified Coach, and I have spent two, two and a half amazing years coaching for The Life Coach School which I never ever dreamed of doing. I also am a coach instructor and I do have a few private clients as well.

Brooke, I remember on one of your podcasts shortly after I got certified where you were saying, “I want to offer coaches a way to just coach their faces off, help people without having to market.” I remember I was driving and my heart started beating faster and I thought, “This is for me.” And then I thought, “Could it be?” It really felt too good to be true. Honestly, that has been my experience the whole way through. It’s just felt too good to be true, it’s felt so amazing.

Brooke Castillo: One of the things that’s super cool about you is that we, at The Life Coach School all of the coaches that go through certification are invited once a year to come to our mastermind event where we have awards for our coaches who make over $100K working as life coaches.

So, when we bring coaches on in the beginning, we offer them a starting salary if they’re going to be full-time of $60K a year and the way that we figure that is the margin in coaching is really great. Most margins are a lot lower. We get to keep a lot of our money that we make and so it’s about 60/40, so when you’re going to start a new business. You’re going to put money into building website and marketing yourself and putting yourself out there.

When you come work for someone as a life coach you don’t have to expend any of that upfront, you just get to hit the ground running and get a paycheck and get paid from the beginning. That’s where we start with $60K, but you actually made – what was the total amount you made? If you don’t mind sharing, in a 12-month period.

Lisa Hatlestad: In a 12-month period last year it was $101,000 and a few dollars.

Brooke Castillo: Oh my gosh. You just made it.

Lisa Hatlestad: Brooke, you slapped me and said, “Hey, congratulations.” And I was like, “What? I made that much?” I was like, “No, they have the wrong person.” It was so hilarious.

Brooke Castillo: That’s awesome. So, she got to stand on the stage as one of our contractors that was working for us full-time and so you may be asking how do you hire someone at $60K and then how do they make $100K?

Within The Life Coach School working for us there’s the opportunity to work as a coach in scholars where you’re coaching clients. Then, there’s also an opportunity in addition to that to do instructing, and we do instructing and scholars, and we also do instructing in our certification programs. Lisa, I didn’t realize you had worked for us for two full years. That’s awesome. More than that it sounds like.

Lisa Hatlestad: Yeah, I actually started coaching while I was still in the Applied Coaching Program, it was the pilot program, so it was like insanely fun and like what is happening here? And I started coaching for you guys as kind of like an intern in January of 2018, I believe.

Brooke Castillo: That’s so awesome. Tell us what it’s like. What is like working full-time as a coach? Most of us who work full-time as a coach, what that means is half of our time were spent marketing and half of our time were spent coaching, but you really got to spend all of your time coaching and I think that’s one of the reasons why you’re such an amazing coach now, right? You literally have coached your face off.

Lisa Hatlestad: Yeah, I have. I mean, it was like – and it was new to everybody, so it was kind of like ready, set, here we go. It got me over any doubt or fear so fast because I had to. I absolutely wanted to show up like an amazing coach that was trained specifically to coach for The Life Coach School.

There was no time for drama and the range of – I started out coaching scholars and so I never knew who I was going to see, what they were coming with, what they were like, anything and inside I was terrified, but I just kept thinking, “I have all the tools. I can do this.”

It’s been incredible because I think a lot of times if you are a coach in a private business the ratio of time that you’re actually spending coaching is in proportion to how often you’re marketing and doing things, but I was coaching 100% of the time, 8 to 10 hours a day some days just like crazy because there was just so much demand for it and there were only a couple of us to begin with.

Brooke Castillo: Okay, so for so many people that is their dream come true, right? I’ve heard them say to me, “I want to come through certification and then I want to go work for a company where all I do is coach.” And there’s such a huge demand from clients for coaching, so is it what you imagined it was? So, you get on the call with someone, you coach someone, you hang up the phone, you coach someone else on something completely different, you hang up the phone, you coach someone completely different.

It’s just client after client after client and I hear back that you’re such a highly rated coach with our organization and our clients love you and I think for some people they were like, that’s a lot of coaching. Is it too much? What’s it like?

Lisa Hatlestad: Honestly, I have to tell you, I just felt like the luckiest person in the world, so it never felt like too much. I would say after seven or eight clients my brain started getting a little [inaudible 0:09:12]...

Brooke Castillo: Yeah, it’s bed time.

Lisa Hatlestad: And that totally was not the norm. That was just in times when, yeah there was a high demand. I mean, it’s almost like this is what I think when I think about that, it’s like getting on the world’s most fun fair ride or something, like amusement park ride.

Literally, it’s just like strap yourself in and here we go. I mean, if you had asked me beforehand, can you switch that quickly? Can you do this? One person after another I would have said, “I don’t know if I can.” Yes, I could. I think that’s what all life coaches find out.

I just think that this particular position asks you to be so much more than you think you can and finding out that you are more than what you think is yeah, such a gift.

Brooke Castillo: It’s huge. I think the thing that we tell all of the new coaches that are working for the school. First of all, you guys go through a lot of training and a lot of testing and a lot of – like we don’t just let anyone coach at The Life Coach School, but you always have the model. What’s amazing about having the model is you literally can coach anyone on anything and you do.

Lisa Hatlestad: Yeah, there’s no one. I am not afraid to coach on any topic. I’m not afraid. I would coach you, Brooke.

Brooke Castillo: You would coach me? Right. See? All I need is someone to take me through the model.

Lisa Hatlestad: Exactly.

Brooke Castillo: [inaudible 0:10:35] myself.

Lisa Hatlestad: Exactly.

Brooke Castillo: That’s awesome. Okay, let’s go to you, Mimi. Tell me everything. Introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you, all the things.

Mimi Porter: Okay, well, I’m Mimi and I certified a year ago and then got hired by The Life Coach School in August, so September was really my first month and I’m full-time. And I have an average of 20 sessions a day.

Brooke Castillo: Okay. What’s that like?

Mimi Porter: It’s amazing.

Brooke Castillo: You love it?

Mimi Porter: It is so amazing.

Brooke Castillo: Isn’t that funny, I’m totally like you, too because I love coaching so much I’m like, 20 people and they’re all just like waiting for me to help them. It’s like the dream, seriously.

Mimi Porter: I love to just look at my schedule. It just fills up with people and I don’t have to do anything to get them. It’s like cheating.

Brooke Castillo: You’re welcome.

Mimi Porter: I know. Thank you so much.

Brooke Castillo: Well, that’s kind of the point, right? We do the marketing and you do the coaching for us. It’s a win-win.

Mimi Porter: Yeah. So, I already knew that I was going to do the certification, but when you started marketing about the new applied coaching track and wanting to provide this different side I was like, “Oh, absolutely.”

Brooke Castillo: Because you didn’t want to have your own business?

Mimi Porter: Not really. I mean, I saw it as like a necessary evil to be able to coach, but then the idea that I didn’t have to do that was just such a gift.

Brooke Castillo: Awesome. Okay.

Mimi Porter: Yeah, it’s amazing. So, just starting in September I’ve coached more than 2,000 people. I’ve had more than 2,000 sessions.

Brooke Castillo: That’s so awesome.

Mimi Porter: It is unbelievable. I like to do puzzles and right now I’m working on a 1,500-piece puzzle and I look at all of those pieces and think, “I’ve had more sessions than each of these pieces on here.”

Brooke Castillo: That’s so awesome.

Mimi Porter: There’s so many.

Brooke Castillo: One of the reasons why that is is when you’re in Scholars you can have one session per week one-on-one, so you sign up – when you’re in Scholars you sign up for a session and then you get a private session. We also do group coaching, but one of the things that I wanted to offer within Scholars was there may be a topic that you don’t want to share publicly and that you may just need a little bit of help on a model. Or you need just some help on your own self-coaching and we wanted to make sure people had private time.

That’s one of the benefits that we’ve offered in Scholars and it’s such a win, right? All of the scholars love it and they fight over all the open spots which is super fun. Then, all of my coaches love it because they can coach, you all can coach and you don’t have to build your own businesses. I’ve talked about this before on the podcast. It just felt like when I first started there was such a demand for clients wanting me to coach them and I just didn’t have time to coach all of them.

Then, I had all these coaches that were trying to build their business looking for clients. I’m like, “Can I just introduce you guys to each other?” Because I feel like you have all of the skills that I have to coach, plus these people need all the help, so this really is a dream come true. That’s really fun to hear that you were able to get hired so quickly and that you’re working full-time and that you’re in. That’s amazing. Awesome.

Mimi Porter: Yeah, thank you.

Brooke Castillo: Let’s go to you, Michelle. Tell us a little bit about you. You don’t work for me – well, you work a little bit for me, but you work mostly for another organization.

Michelle Arant: I do. I’m an instructor in the Coach Certification Program, but I coach with the wonderful Kris Plachy and for those who aren’t familiar with her we work with female entrepreneurs and teach them how to lead and manage their teams.

I primarily work with those people who are just beginning to think about hiring maybe their first two or three employees and really getting their business in place and getting ready to scale so that they can move up and be ready to work with Kris.

I used to have my own business and I was a weight loss coach and she reached out to me in the fall of last year and said, “Hey, I need some help. Are you interested?” And it took me like I don’t know, like 30 minutes to decide to jump on board.

Brooke Castillo: You’re working full-time? You work full-time for her?

Michelle Arant: I do.

Brooke Castillo: Okay, so she hired you full-time which is super amazing and you’re doing one-to-one and group coaching in her organization?

Michelle Arant: Yes, I am, and I still have some clients that I have just a few I still keep in my own business, but I am full-time with her and absolutely love it. Like everybody else I really wanted to coach and like Mimi was saying having a business of my own was like a necessary evil I thought to be able to coach.

Brooke Castillo: Yeah.

Michelle Arant: But at the same time after I did it and proved to myself that I could it was fun to be able to say, “Okay, which of these do I want to do? Which one do I get to do?” And I just decided that I wanted to work as a coach with someone, especially someone like Kris who does coaching that I really enjoy doing because I did some coaching whenever I was in corporate.

So, it’s just been nice to be a part of a team and that’s what I love about being a coach who’s employed by someone else is I feel like we’re a team and we get to work on things together and get to move things together forward. I just love it.

Brooke Castillo: That’s actually a really good point. Being an entrepreneur and owning your own coaching business has so many benefits, but it’s also very lonely. It’s very isolating. You’re building your company by yourself and one of the things that I think is amazing about an opportunity to get certified and work for someone else is you have the opportunity to coach your face off, gets lots of coaching experience, work with other people that are already in this industry, get your toes wet, build your community and then maybe go and build your business or not.

There’s a lot of people that have come to me that say they have no desire to own their own business, they’re never going to do that. Some people come to me and say, “I want to come work for you or another organization for a couple years” which is kind of what Lisa did and then go out when I feel like I have that experience then go out and build my own business or go part-time and then do it half and half which is what a lot of people do.

When I first started in this industry there wasn’t as much opportunity as there is now. There are so many successful life coaches now that need help. I know because they’re asking me all the time, “Do you have coaches that can help me?”

I feel like I wanted to share this with everyone. The expansive opportunity that’s happening in this industry is such a joy. I love that. I love that you had your own business, decided – you build up your own company and then you’ve decided now to just go full-time. And I know, I talk to Kris all the time and she’s like, “I love her. I love her.”

Part of the reason for Kris of wanting to have another coach with her is exactly what you just said, she was feeling so isolated and alone, having another coach to bounce ideas off, partner with I think is super important for people, so that’s awesome.

Michelle Arant: Yes, and it’s really fun for me, too, because I like to get things done. I love it that she’s a visionary and she has all the ideas.

Brooke Castillo: Yes.

Michelle Arant: We make such a great team because I like to help her. When I’m not coaching I like to help her with the nuts and bolts and just allow her to think big and have the ideas and then me come along and try to help. So, I think that’s why we are successful in what we do because we complement each other and I think there’s so many coaches who are like. Where they like to help people as well. That’s why we love being coaches.

It’s just so much fun when you can jump on board with someone and grow and build together because we have the same likes and all that. It’s just really fun. I’ve been really blessed.

Brooke Castillo: Right, and I think what’s cool about your story, too is also the community that we’ve established at The Life Coach School. We have so many coaches that know each other that when we need help it’s like we can reach out and ask each other, “Hey, do you know anyone that’s looking to be working full-time?”

We have people that are coming through our Applied Coaching Program that want to work, that want to go and work for other corporations, that don’t want to start their own business and so we have a list of recommendations of people that have gone through that program.

That program, like Lisa was saying, just started a few years ago has now become the gold standard.

Michelle Arant: I was in that pilot program. That’s actually how I met Lisa and to think – I was so grateful for it and to look at it now and see how very robust the training is and how much better you are as a coach. Everybody is always a good coach coming out of certification [inaudible 0:19:45] high standards, but man when you go through Applied Coaching you are ready.

Brooke Castillo: Yeah, you get grilled.

Michelle Arant: Yes, these other coaches who need – who want to hire people to help them they know, they know the [inaudible 0:19:59]

Brooke Castillo: Yeah, that’s where we’re going. And you know what’s so cool about that program, for me, as a business owner is that was something that my employees, who are certified coaches, created. Bev and Lauren and Katie have really gone in and created – they are not messing around.

Michelle Arant: No.

Brooke Castillo: It’s like a PhD program, it’s so great, but it produces – and listen, not everyone gets through it really quickly. Sometimes there’s a lot of – we make sure that you’re getting exactly what you need to be able to come out on the other side of that. So, I’m stoked. I’m so excited that that program just keeps improving and producing coaches that – it’s like, if we’re willing to hire coaches that have come through there and we’re willing to let them work with our clients they’re the best of the best.

Hats off to you three, by the way, I know are listening to this podcast. You guys have done an amazing job. All right, Caitlin, let’s go to you. Tell us all the things. Introduce yourself.

Caitlin Faas: Yes. My name is Caitlin Faas and I certified through The Life Coach School in March 2019. I have a PhD in human development and family studies. I’m a full-time tenured psychology professor. I was promoted during my time –

Brooke Castillo: You’re fancy.

Caitlin Faas: Brooke Castillo just told me I’m fancy. The best part about this is this is the first time we’re meeting.

Brooke Castillo: I know, right? Isn’t that crazy?

Caitlin Faas: Never in a million years did I think I was going to be on the podcast. Maybe in like five, and then I’ll be a big deal and Brooke will have me on.

Brooke Castillo: You’re a pretty big deal already.

Caitlin Faas: Thanks. And I started working for the school in September. And so, I was promoted during that time at work and so I see my undergraduate students and I coach part-time and it's a great day, teaching, coaching, going back and forth, setting my own schedule. To me, this is the application.

Speaking of PhD programs, I have all of the knowledge for the terminology and listening to you all these years was like, “Brooke knows what she’s talking about.” And when you put out that call for like, “I want people to be able to coach for me.” I had already been coaching private clients since 2017, but that entrepreneurial piece was just like, “Ugh, I’m dabbling in this, I don’t really want to do this.”

Coaching for the school is actually motivation to work on my own business. When we see scholars who are working on their business and they’re telling about what they’re doing I never imagine that then I would want to go create that Facebook ad and I would want to update my website to have that information.

Brooke Castillo: That’s awesome.

Caitlin Faas: It’s an amazing world. I’m so grateful you created it and that I’m living my wildest dreams, being an example of what’s possible because you keep saying, Brooke, “I’m an example of what’s possible.”

Brooke Castillo: That’s awesome. So, you’re doing part-time?

Caitlin Faas: Yes.

Brooke Castillo: Working part-time for the school and then you’re also working part-time at another school?

Caitlin Faas: Full-time.

Brooke Castillo: Oh, you’re working full-time?

Caitlin Faas: Full-time for them.

Brooke Castillo: At a university.

Caitlin Faas: Yeah, full-time for my university, part-time for The Life Coach School, raising my family.

Lisa Hatlestad: Is that a thing? Can you work full-time and part-time? Is that a thing?

Caitlin Faas: Absolutely. People don’t believe it, right, but if you use Monday Hour One, you make it happen.

Brooke Castillo: I was going to say, you must use Monday Hour One. So, I love this. I didn’t realize you were working full-time at the university. Here’s what’s so cool about your story is so many people have full-time jobs that want to become life coaches, but they’re afraid to just quit their job.

I’m always telling them not to quit their job. I’m like, “Don’t quit your job until you really have – “ and some people just quit their jobs anyway, which – that’s what I would do, but I tell them not to do it just because I’m crazy. But some people love their jobs, too, and they want to keep them, but they want to coach.

How do you make that work? How do you work full-time and coach part-time?

Caitlin Faas: Yeah, managing my mind for sure. Watching my time carefully, making decisions quickly, not spinning out an indecision or indulge in emotions, confusion, and really dialing it in and also loving what I do. I’d say there was a good three years where I hated what I did at the university and I thought I needed to get out, and being certified and then coaching the scholars and being a part-time contractor is like, “Oh no, I do also love being a professor.”

That centered me back around and I would’ve never imagined that was possible through certification.

Brooke Castillo: So, do you coach in the evenings or do you coach during the day?

Caitlin Faas: A mixture of both, I do weekends, too.

Brooke Castillo: Oh, nice.

Caitlin Faas: Coaching is so – it’s energizing, right? At the end of it I’m like, “Yeah, now I have energy to go spend time with my family. Now, I have energy to go do that next thing I want to do,” rather than – some people think, “Oh, and you’d be drained after coaching scholars all day.” No, you get energy from it.

Brooke Castillo: That’s so cool. I love that. I love that you’re coaching in the evenings, during the day and on the weekends. That’s what’s so cool about our industry, too, right? Clients need coaching all the time. It’s not like 8 to 5 only coaching, we’re doing it all the time.

Yay, that’s an awesome story. Okay, what about you, Kathryn? Introduce yourself and tell us all about you.

Kathryn Green: I’m Kathryn Green, I’m a Master Certified Coach with The Life Coach School, the best school in the whole wide world and I am actually working full-time for The Life Coach School as a contract coach. I’m a coach instructor as well, for the certification program and I have my own business.

I started out with my own business first, and went through master coach certification and during that process realized it was a possibility to work for The Life Coach School. I knew that before, but really came into my experience that it was possible to do and I thought, “Maybe I’ll do that part-time in addition to.” And then I was like, “Why not do it full-time? Let’s see what that looks like.”

I thought I was already working full-time in my business, but I was like, “That’s fine. I’m going to do this and I’m going to bring this on.” I have managed to actually continue to grow my business while working for The Life Coach School and it’s just an absolute dream come true.

Brooke Castillo: What would you say to someone, because I know that there’s someone listening to this and they’re like, “Well, those people are fancy. Right? They have all their degrees and all their certifications and clearly Brooke likes them and knows them already.” What would you say, because I think a lot of people go through, “Well, I’m not ever going to be able to get hired by The Life Coach School. I’m not going to be a good enough coach.”

Lisa was talking about how she was so worried about that. What would you say to someone? Because you know there’s someone thinking that right now. What would you say to them?

Kathryn Green: For sure. Nobody’s fancier than anybody else. We are all exactly the same. We all have doubts and dreams and hopes and fears and all of that. It’s really a matter of just putting one foot ahead of the other and taking the step forward and believing in yourself. I think that, Brooke, for me, has been what has happened over the course of the last year having worked for The Life Coach School and building my own business is the belief in yourself is exponentially larger than I’d ever dreamed possible, right?

You just learn how to believe in yourself. Lisa said it, right? You just show up, you might be afraid, but you show up and you’re there for your people. I’m here for the clients that are there and want some help. That’s the only reason you’re there and the more you do that the more you build your confidence. That’s brilliant.

Brooke Castillo: I love it when people say to me or any of my colleagues are like, “You know that the life coach industry is saturated. You know that there’s way more coaches than there are people.” And we’re just like, “Listen, we can not hire coaches fast enough.” Our organization is growing so fast. The clients are growing way faster than we can get coaches trained and I think that’s – if you’re worried that there aren’t enough clients, you just need to come work for us for a while and you’ll see that they’re all there.

What’s so interesting is all of us as coaches want coaching, too. It’s like we want each other to coach us. So, I think that’s the other piece. It’s not like, there’s all these coaches that are coaching and then there’s these clients that need coaching. It’s like, no, we all – all the humans need coaching.

I think that’s my next marketing campaign is every human needs a life coach. So, when I think about baseball stadiums full of people, how many of those people have a life coach yet? Not enough of them, right?

I love what you said about that, it’s like as you see the demand and the need and the desire for people to get coached it just gives you more and more confidence about the opportunity that’s available out there. I know that some of you are listening to this and doubting yourselves and thinking, “Oh, I don’t know that I could do – I don’t know that The Life Coach School would hire me.” Or, “I don’t know that someone like Kris Plachy or another organization would hire me. I don’t know that I have what it takes to get certified or go through this applied coaching thing.”

I just want you to know if you’re feeling that way, you’re feeling like we all did, too. Right? It’s like going through that doubt and confusion is normal, but also giving yourself a chance to believe in yourself I think is – I see myself now in this industry and the opportunity that you all have available to you versus what happened when I was – when I first started.

I would tell people I was a life coach and they were like, “Oh really, what sport?” Like nobody knew what the heck I was even talking about and then I would say, “I’m kind of like a therapist, but happier and more excited.” And I say, “Fuck” a lot more. Right? And that was kind of how I was explaining what I was doing and people were so confused about and now when I tell people I’m a life coach I feel like there’s a very different vibe, a very different energy around it, and I think that – I want to just say I think that we’re just warming up.

I think that this industry is just about to take off. So, life coach training is open. Certification is open. If you are interested in becoming a life coach – why don’t you guys just speak briefly about the training a little bit? I’ll start with you, Lisa. If you had just a few sentences to say about what the training is like. If someone is asking me, “What’s it like to go through training if I want to become a life coach?” What would you say?

Lisa Hatlestad: Especially now the way the training is done online it’s such a rich experience because all of the students get to absorb your lesson and then come to a live class to apply it and practice. I think it’s interesting because it doesn’t necessarily look the way you think it’s going to do if you’re thinking about college and what classrooms look like. It’s very different than that, but it’s so immersive and it’s just like literally I love being an instructor and watching the students evolve from the first day when they’re scared and they’re thinking all of the stuff that we just talked about.

Like, “I don’t know,” right? And I feel so confident because I was there, too. There’s no sign to tell you you’re going to be a good life coach, but they evolve because they learn to believe in themselves through the process of certification and just practicing.

Brooke Castillo: Yeah, and that’s the great thing about coach training, right? You get to come in and start practicing coaching, but you’re also a client, so you get to bring all your crazy with you. You’d be like, “I’m freaked out. I don’t know if I can do this,” and there’s all these people in there that are willing to coach you and help you, so you benefit of being a client and a coach all through the training. I think that’s where the transformation comes from.

Okay, so, Mimi, what about you? If somebody called – this is what happens a lot, people will go to our find a coach page and they’ll send emails out and say, “Okay, you went through the certification. Is it worth it? Should I do it?” What do you say when people call you and want to know that information from you?

Mimi Porter: Oh absolutely, no question, and I think one of the brilliant things about the way it’s laid out is it’s just one step at a time. The assignments throughout get a little bit more challenging, especially if you take the applied coaching. It all builds on each other and it’s just a slow process, and especially, I love that we’re also our first client and the personal growth that happens for each one of us going through the certification is just priceless.

Brooke Castillo: Yeah, that’s so good. I was just thinking while you were saying that, and I was asking, “Is it worth it?” I think that’s what people want to ask us all the time and I’m like, “Where else can you go?” If you go to college and the tuition that you pay you can get a job that will pay you back in less than a year. Unbelievable, and have it be a job that you love so much and that you get to practice doing. So, that’s awesome. What about you, Michelle? What do you say when people call you and be like, “I don’t know”?

Michelle Arant: I just tell them that they have to do it. Drop all that, just drop it and sign up and do it because I just believe that any time we’re scared that’s just the sign that we need to do it. I love to tell my students in the beginning, “It’s going to be fun for me to watch, but you yourselves, you’re not even going to recognize who you are after the six months of certification with me.”

You don’t even recognize yourself because of what you had to do and how you had to coach yourself, and how you got coaching on all your drama. You’re not even going to recognize yourself and you’ll be so proud of yourself and you’ll be so much more equipped to then go into applied coaching or the entrepreneurial track and just become even better and up-level yourself even more.

It’s a no-brainer. Where else can you go and sign up for coaching for a year? Think about it, because like you said, you’re receiving coaching all along the way and becoming a coach so that then you can be hired to make your investment back and then you’re becoming just an amazing person on the other side of it, through the journey. So, I just say, “Just stop that drama and do it.”

Brooke Castillo: Just stop it and sign up. It’s so funny because I’ve had several people who hate their jobs and they decide, “Okay, I’m going to go become a coach.” And so they sign up for certification and then they decide that they don’t need to leave their job. Their job is great.

Caitlin, when you referencing that as well, I was actually just thinking of – I remember when Maggie Reyes went through, we just had her on the podcast. She went through, initially, she wanted to quit her job and she’s like, “As I went through this training, I got so much coaching on what I was feeling every day that she ended up literally loving her job.

She now has quit years later to become a full-time coach, but she stayed within that job and got promoted and I think about that all the time because you’re getting so much coaching. You’re evolving so much. What about you, Caitlin, what would you say?

Caitlin Faas: Yeah, being in certification and being a life coach is being in the arena. It’s really doing the rough and tumble like I’m playing this game for real, not just passively watching it. Or if you’ve ever been a teacher or you’ve had to teach your kid math or you’re learning a new sport yourself, you’re like, “Oh, this is much harder than they make it look on TV.”

That’s what happens. You’re like, “I’m driving in my car listening to Brooke. I know that model that she’s talking about.” And then Bev is on a call with you and is testing you and you’re like, “And here’s the real rumble in the arena and I’m ready.”

Brooke Castillo: You’re like, I forgot my name. What’s happening?

Caitlin Faas: Yes, I don’t know my own name right now, but it’s so worth it on the other side when you’ve been in the arena and you can look around at all the other coaches who have done it with you and say, “We did that battle. We fought that battle and we’re here and we’re the example of what’s possible now.”

Brooke Castillo: So good, and I love that we do it in such small groups. There’s no hiding, but you don’t want to hide because you can go to college and you can sit in the huge auditorium classrooms and hide in the back and no one will even know if you show up for class.

The way that we set this is up is like, listen, if you’re going to be a coach that represents the logo of The Life Coach School, you have to know how to coach. We don’t just certify you for coming through. You’ve got to prove to us that you know how to coach.

So, I think in some ways that might scare people away, but in other ways we’re so invested in you and we’re so invested in you learning that all that fear gets dissipated really quickly after like, I don’t know, what would you say, Kathryn? Like class three, you’re like, “Okay. I was freaked out, but now I’m just going to get in there and do it.”

Because the only way you learn how to coach well is by practicing. That’s what I say. You can listen to me on the podcast all day long. You can listen to me coach all day long, that’s not going to make you a good coach.

Kathryn Green: No. And you’ve got to show up. You’ve got to show up, you’ve got to try, you’ve got to practice, you’ve got to be told how you’re doing, how are you doing well, how are you not doing well and what to do to improve. Without that you’re just out there thinking you’re doing it okay, right?

Brooke Castillo: Exactly.

Kathryn Green: There’s a whole practice that you teach us to do that isn’t available out there anywhere else in the world. I was a coach before I became a coach through The Life Coach School.

Brooke Castillo: Oh, I didn’t know that. Don’t tell us where you got certified.

Kathryn Green: No, very different realm, very different support, and I just wanted to say this, too, that I’ve seen now four iterations of The Life Coach School training, mine being the first that I saw and then three after that. And I never thought it could get any better than it was when I went through, but there was no applied track when I went through the first time. Now, there’s applied, and now there’s more support for coaching, and now there’s more opportunities for other things and it’s just remarkable.

I always tell people when they contact me, yeah, the support is insane. While you’re in it, but also in addition to once you’ve certified the support continues.

Brooke Castillo: Yeah, and I think just to wrap this up, working as a coach in this industry is, I think, such a blessing, especially when you’re part of The Life Coach School environment because we are all working on our clients. If you’re part of The Life Coach School you can come to Slack and be like, “I have this client. Here’s my issue. I need some help.” Or, “I’m trying to sell this thing in my business, I need some help.” Or, “I’m having a hard time. I need someone to help me out and fill in for me. I need some help.”

But being able to have that community and that environment to rely on. And the other thing that’s super important to me is ongoing education that is all included, right? You guys get to keep coming to Mastermind, keep coming to Business Workshop as part of being a life coach in this industry. So, I am super thankful that you guys came on and shared your experiences and it’s kind of fun that we have this crew of you all now that have been working for us full-time, that have been coaching all of our clients and they’re having amazing careers because of what we’ve created at the school and because of this amazing certification program.

So, any of you on the fence thinking about working as a life coach, I just want to tell you that if you have that desire within you, too, and you – I feel like coaches know that they’re coaches before they’re coaches, right? When you guys say that it’s like you feel it in your bones.

People will say to me, “I just love you, Brooke.” I’m like, “No, you just recognize yourself as a coach in me. That’s what it is and that you know that you have that within you and you want to do it and that’s why you’re attracted to that.”

So, if you’re feeling that way let these guys inspire you to take it to the next level and if you’re in Scholars I’m sure you’re going to see one of them very soon on one of your one-to-one sessions. Thank you, guys, very much for coming and for the rest of you I will talk to you next week. Take care, bye.

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.