Well, hello, my friends. Welcome to this special bonus episode, Reimagining. I asked my employees, Katie and Courtney and Erika, to put a podcast together based on the new certification that they have collectively created.
I challenged them several months ago to create the best certification that we've ever had. And I went to Katie, who's in charge of our instructors and who's in charge of our coaches and who is really responsible for developing the quality of the coaches that we have working for us. And I asked her, what is the training that we could create that would produce the highest level coaching in the world?
And what is the training that would give the most practice and the most quality instruction to anyone that could ever go through a coach training? And she took those questions and she got with Courtney and she got with Erika, and they reimagined our coach certification program. And we basically closed down all of our enrollment for several months so they could work on this training.
And now they've reinvented it and they're unveiling it. And I am so excited, not just for the training that they've created, but also the process that they went through to create it. And I asked them to share that process with you all.
And I think they've done a beautiful job explaining what it means to constantly be improving, to never get comfortable, to never get stagnant, to always be the best of the best in terms of over delivering. And so in this special bonus podcast, they are sharing with you the process of reimagining, so you can think about that for your own self, for your own life. If you are someone that is interested in becoming a certified life coach, now is the time for you to really explore and understand what we are offering.
It is our highest value product we have ever created. We just keep getting better and better and better. So if you've been waiting, if you've been on the fence, if you haven't been sure about whether it's the right time or not, now is the time.
Make sure you go to the lifecoachschool.com/certification to learn everything that's happening with our latest offering of Coach Certification that is open now, is our last certification for the year. So if you're interested, now is the time. Please enjoy the following bonus podcast with Erika, Courtney, and Katie.
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.
So this is a really exciting day. My name is Erika Royal. I am the CEO of the Life Coach School, and I am joined today by two of my favorite people, Katie Pulsifer, who is our Director of Coach and Instructor Development, and Courtney Delgado, who is our Director of Programs and Special Projects here at the Life Coach School.
And we want to welcome you to our pop-up podcast on reimagining. So this is going to be fun. I don't think that we've had a chance to do anything like this, sub in for Brooke like this, and talk about something.
And I know I'm excited to talk about this because reimagining is something that we're doing here all the time. And I don't know if people realize the extent to which we are always reimagining at the Life Coach School. But before we start talking about the reimagining that's happening right now, let's just talk a little bit about what it is to reimagine something and kind of what that framework is.
So first, when you're going to reimagine, at least the way that we mean it here, first, you need to look at what you are doing and really give it a good look, look at it hard, and decide that you love every bit of it. Like every single thing about this, decide that you love all of it. And then, once you've gotten to the point where you can say, without hesitation, I love every last bit of it, also decide that you are not so attached to it, that you are unwilling to blow it all up, right?
Decide that you are not so closed in your mind, that you can't see a path to where you could make this thing different and change it and evolve it. So, that's what we mean by reimagining here. At least that's what I mean.
I would love to hear from you guys. If you'd like to elaborate on that or add anything, Katie.
Yeah, as you were describing it, I was thinking it's not too dissimilar to how we teach the unintentional and intentional models in coach certification. So, we have the unintentional model that's going on in our lives, and we actually teach students to slow down and look at the model and have a relationship with it and observe it and learn from it and maybe possibly even love the person that has that model before reimagining a new model or a new possibility for themselves. And so, even the way we teach a tool here at the school, the theme with that can be all around reimagining and supporting this concept as well.
It's like you can't move on to the next great thought. You can't move on to the next model. You can't move on to the next project without kind of having this relationship with where you are right now, what you've already created, what was always supposed to exist, because it does.
Absolutely. Courtney, what about you?
Yeah, I was just thinking about what it's really like to create something, love it, work so hard to make it something that you love and that you're proud of and that is creating all of the results that you set out to create to really spend the time to invest in whatever it was or is that you're doing. And the delicate dance of loving this thing and un-attaching from it, detaching from it. Like what a challenge that can be.
Because I think that sometimes we spend time making something the best version that we could possibly make it and spending so much time making it into this thing that we love. And then we might have a tendency to get really precious about it. And we just want to keep it safe and on its little shelf.
Like this is what it is and it will always be this. And I think it can kind of be an adventure and it can kind of be a really fun challenge to take yourself on, to be willing to have this thing that you love and adore so much. And also like what if you blew it up?
What if you changed it entirely? What if you did it all different? What would you do next time?
And your mind might have to like do a couple loops, but if you can get yourself down that trail, it's really fun road to go on. I think that I have grown so much just by either being challenged to go down that road or challenging myself. It can be really fun to do for sure.
So speaking of being challenged to go down that road, I know that for me, when I first came to the Life Coach School, and it's been almost three years now, one of the very first things that I heard Brooke say, but then I heard it many, many, many, many times until I then started saying it myself, was just because we've always done something this way doesn't mean we always have to do it this way. It's almost like just because we've done something this way is reason enough not to do it this way anymore. And I know that when I first got here, it took a moment for that to sink in for me because I was coming from a career that has very strict rules, literal laws, if you will, on how you do things.
And the idea of reimagining anything as a lawyer is no, that's definitely not going to happen. And so I knew pretty quickly that I was going to have to change the way that I thought about everything. And so I would, when I first started here, I would say to people, well, what do we usually do?
And then finally I was like, no, never ask that question because it literally doesn't matter. In fact, if we've been doing it for a while, that's absolutely not going to be the right way to go. So I love that you're saying that you make something really precious and it's almost like you make it really precious and then you drop it on its head.
Yes, exactly.
So my former career, I was doing product development and design and 80% of our products were relist items. And I'm talking a lot of khaki pants and polo shirts. That's like the industry I was in.
And the relist business, you can't deviate, you can't change. It needs to be the same exact fabric weight, the same navy blue year after year, the same price so that our customers, we had trained them that they could come back sometimes for 20 years and get the exact same product every single year. And so when I got here over five years ago, I definitely came in with that, like, we perfect relists mentality and had to learn pretty quickly, oh, no, as soon as you've created something amazing, be willing to part ways with it because there's another amazing something in your brain that needs to come out.
And I've just always been a little freaked out and also totally captivated by that challenge. And now I'm just so used to it. I can't necessarily imagine generating relists year after year after year because it's so fun to realize that I have something in my brain.
And we, when we work together as a team, all of us at LCS, we're going to come up with something that's never been done before, but we give ourselves permission to do that, which is pretty exciting. Awesome.
And I think the fun part for me or the interesting part for me is so much of my life, I called myself a perfectionist and I try not to call myself that anymore. I am not labeling myself in that way, but I was always, you know, chasing perfection, chasing what was new and better and like perfect in some way, whatever that means. And so when I would accomplish something, the only reason I could come up with to go after another goal or to do something next was to make whatever I created before terrible and to shame myself that it wasn't good enough and to find all of the faults in it and everything like that.
And I think when we take on that challenge and we just know just because we've always done it this way doesn't mean we're going to do it again. And we just know that reimagining is the process. We also let ourselves appreciate and enjoy and take pride in the things that we've done, right?
That's a whole other way of existing as a human than what I experienced for the first many years of my life. It's a complete paradigm shift to love what you've done, appreciate what you've done, be proud of what you've done, and be willing to challenge yourself or to go in another way.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's interesting too that you said that, and also that Katie said that her experience was that she was creating a product that people had been trained, they could just come back for 20 years and do over and over and over again.
And so when we talk about reimagining at the Life Coach School, we're really talking about our two core products. We have our membership, which is currently called Get Coached, formerly Self-Coaching Scholars, clearly going through its own reimagination right now. And then we have the Coach Certification Program, which is also being reimagined.
But in thinking about the latest iteration of Coach Certification, it did occur to us that even the three of us on this podcast didn't do the same version of certification. So Courtney and I did, and it's been about five years. Katie, you were doing it about two years before us.
When you did it, it was in person.
Yes.
We were in the classes.
Yes.
In a small class, we were in the first online group. And even since we did it five years ago, it's changed a few more times. And so this idea that we're going to continue to reimagine and evolve the core products of the company is not new.
But I don't know if people realize when they experience it from the outside, that it is a very intentional and deliberate thing that we are doing on the inside.
Absolutely. I think it's so fun to think about all the iterations that we've done and all that knowledge and that we keep building upon it to create something that hasn't existed before that is still called Coach Certification, of course, and is still a program to certify life coaches, but that there are so many things that we have learned by doing and by experiencing so many customers and their amazing testimonials and their amazing stories and accomplishments, that the fact that we get to work here and constantly like bring the program kind of back into the kitchen and like change the recipe a little bit, I just feel like allows us to really bring out the best in all of us. We are constantly challenging ourselves to think about like, what is going to best serve the next students who are supposed to take this training?
Right. Yes, I agree with you. I think that it's true that we weren't in the same class because we weren't supposed to be.
I know that when you were going through Coach Certification, I had never even heard of The Life Coach School. So I was able to go through Coach Certification at the time that I was supposed to go through it, and have the experience that I was meant to have, which was amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Luckily, at the time, it was like this is what's offered, and that was great because that allowed me to make a decision.
If I had had to wait, well, wait, if I just wait a little longer, maybe they'll do it this way, or maybe this will happen, right? And I could still be sitting in that miserable maybe, waiting for whatever I think the best version, instead of knowing that the timing is always perfect. And I think that Courtney also had a really good point about the evolution of the coach certification class, just from the perspective of being an instructor.
Yeah, totally. I went through the coach certification program online, and I want to say too, each time, inclusion is one of our values here, and I think each time we re-imagine it and maybe change the format, part of that is to inviting in new people and how can we include new people. And I was just remembering, I did think about the coach certification program when it was taught live, and you had to get on a call in order to do an interview to get accepted to that program.
And I, for my circumstances at the time, couldn't figure out how I could make that possible for my life. So when it became a program that was taught online, like suddenly I was included with what was going on in my life. I think so many more people were able to be included into that program.
And I think it's fun to imagine that each time we get to do that, we get to invite more people in. And exactly what you're saying, even when it has maybe from the outside not looked like we've been making major changes, when I went through as a student and then was teaching a year later, the program was different. We had new tools, we had learned new ways of teaching, coaching that we added to the curriculum, we're always evolving.
Whether people are noticing it or not, we are always changing it up.
I love that because it's so true. And what you said about the course going online and becoming more inclusive is borne out obviously by the numbers. So many more people were able to participate in coach certification once it went online.
So I think that is also an absolutely beautiful thing. So yeah, I just, I think of sometimes when we're making these changes and we're like, it's perfectly fine. Like, why are we changing it?
This is great. Let's just do it. But you also don't want to be that television show that stays on too long, that people stop watching, right?
You kind of want to switch it up while you're on top and keep it fresh and keep it moving. And we are always creating new tools. Brooke is always coming up with new tools.
I mean, even us, you know, involving Trudy more deeply in certification, right? That was a change from when I was going through certification, a great change. And one of the beauties and one of my favorite things about the Life Coach School and Coach certification is that when we make those changes, when we evolve in that way, we're always sure to make sure that our alumni get to come along with us by making sure that they have access to the new materials and really asking them to continue to evolve themselves.
Right. So as we evolve and we reimagine, we are also challenging you to do the same.
Yeah, definitely. And, you know, the world is changing, and what's happening in the world and how we can help serve and be part of a solution to what's going on in the world and deliver tools more effectively, have a greater impact, create better service and opportunity for our coaches. If we were stuck or attached or we considered one version of our training, as Courtney said, to be very precious and we were super protective of it, we would kind of have blinders on to what's really maybe a need.
And we wouldn't have invited Trudy LeBron to join us and add all of this incredibly rich and necessary content to our training. And we ask all of our instructors to constantly deepen their skills and their ability to teach our tools in the most effective, simple, easy to understand way because we're attracting so many students where English might be their second language. And it's fun thinking about ways of delivering the product through the website that it is more accessible and easier to interpret all of our information.
So sometimes you wish it were a little bit easier and you wish you could just press the repeat or to use the term from my old job, the relist button, and then it's like every time. I'm so glad we don't. I am so glad we don't because the other thing that I watch happen is the three of us were never the same people on the other side of it either.
Absolutely. And it's this incredible strategic byproduct of being committed to reimagining is that you can't also stay the same. The product changes, you change.
And I think we're all in on that because we're all coaches, we're all for this growth work. So it's a fun benefit.
For everyone listening, there's so many ways to reimagine, right? Whether it's something as simple as the furniture in one of the rooms of your home or your apartment, wherever you live, right? Like just reimagining how that room would be set up.
You might think that it's perfect now. And if you move a few pieces, how does that change the way you experience the room? And do you love it the same amount?
Do you love it more, right? Like that's such a simple little way to experiment. And you can experiment big and small.
But what I've seen so many people do, even as I've coached them, is they are afraid to make a change or reimagine a little bit because they don't want to mess it up or they're not quite sure the right way or all of these thoughts that we get in our head. But exactly what you were saying, Katie, we're never the same person twice. We're always responding to what's going on in the world, how we can invite in more people, how we can add to the things that we love, right?
And if you're not willing to just let it not be so precious, if you're not willing to experiment with it a little bit, you can always move the furniture in your room back to the way it was. If you're not willing to experiment a little bit, you miss out on the opportunity of just seeing who you could become if you tried.
Right?
Yes. I love that idea. I love this idea that everything happens when it's supposed to, that the timing is always perfect, that you are exactly where you're supposed to be.
So I think that for anybody who is interested, we had closed certification for a while, and we have recently reopened it for enrollment. Classes are going to start next month in July. Anybody who's interested can go to our website, www.thelifecoachschool.com/certification, and learn all about certification as it exists right now.
And of course, we welcome you to go there and get more information. We could talk about certification all day, although I think that this podcast is meant to end at some point. So we should probably wrap it up.
But do you guys have anything else you want to say in closing about the new certification, about reimagining, anything at all?
I just would add that I think as scary as it can be, or like Courtney said, maybe it's a really small invitation that you might give yourself to do a bit of reimagining in your life. There doesn't really seem to be any downside. Yes, there's some discomfort as you go from your current model to your new model, or cross that river of misery, or just sit with the discomfort of unknowing what the journey is going to be like.
But really, the growth is phenomenal. And who you can become is, I think, the most captivating and exciting part. And we teach all of that, those tools, and so many more inside our Life Coach Certification program.
We're really excited about the changes that we've made, made with lots of love for all the things we've done prior. And excited to bring this program to more and more people who want to bring this work out into the world.
Courtney, what about you?
I just want to offer to everyone who's listening, just maybe take a moment, five minutes max, and think about the thing in your life that you couldn't imagine reimagining, that you're just like, no, I will never, ever change it. And no one is telling you, you have to, but just as a little experiment in your own mind, find all of the things that you love about it, and then just play with it a little bit of if you did re-imagine it, what would that look like for you? And just let it be a fun game in your mind that you're playing.
You don't have to act on any of it, but I think even the exercise of exploring it can start to open doors, and you might find one little tweak you want to make. And those tiny baby steps, I think, add up and help us move down the path towards the lives we really want for ourselves. And that is kind of the whole point, I think.
That is excellent. And, you know, five years ago, when I was thinking about certification, I did not use the word reimagine. That was not a word that I used, but the way that I was thinking about my life and what certification could do for me was really reimagining who I was.
And now I look back on all of that. I mean, I think at the time, my question was, what if it's just as good? What if I do something completely different?
Because I think that when you're making a change, you have the idea that, well, it's either going to be just as good or worse, but you never ever think, like, what if it's amazing? And so just thinking about certification and what it meant to me personally and how it changed my life, I realize now that I was re-imagining who I could be. And so, you know, what if it's just as good?
I think we can wrap on that note, ladies. Thank you so much for doing this with me today. It was so fun.
It was, you guys. And I will, you know, see you at work. Bye.
Bye.
