Coaches have coaches, and I've always believed in the power of continuous personal and professional growth. A few weeks ago, my own coach took me on a transformative journey during my visit to LA. In this blog post, I’ll share what this experience meant to me, how it happened, and where it's leading me. How it happened My coach shifted me a few weeks ago. I feel like a new person right now, and a little bit like, finally, I'm coming into this place where I really want to be. It's not to say that the past few years or the past 12 years are not where I wanted to be. But there's been a lot of evolving. I wrote another blog called The Change is Coming, and the funny thing is I didn’t know what the change would be, only that it was coming. I hadn't been able to put my finger on exactly what it is. As someone who is A-type, driven, and decisive, this has been so frustrating and so annoying to not be able to pinpoint what it is. I've had sessions with other coaches, and we just haven't hit the nail on the head. It's been annoying, and really frustrating. When I went into this two-day mastermind in LA, I thought what I was looking for was some clarity on my 2024 strategy with my current offerings:
I wasn't looking for a personal shift, but it had to happen. As I said before, the change is coming. It is coming, and the change is feeling like it's seriously been happening since 2019. It was before COVID-19 that I felt off in a way. I was shifting but, I didn't know what that meant, that I’m changing, and there's this new thing to bring forth. But without the clarity of what it actually was, I struggled. I have this client who listened to the podcast episode of the Change is Coming, and she was so excited. In our next one-on-one session, she wanted to get the behind-the-scenes scoop, the “what was really happening” or the “what was I alluding to”. The funny thing is I didn't have the clarity. A lot of the work I do with my clients is around three phases:
You need clarity on what you want and clarity on what that looks like. Then, when you decide that you’re going to do it, you start to build confidence with the support of me as your coach. Then, when you start to get into action, the confidence boosts even more, and the clarity comes in even clearer. When you're in action, it's exciting and great because you're moving forward toward your goal. In my case, I couldn't get into the confidence and action piece because the clarity was lacking. I've been looking for it since 2019, and I believe that it was unlocked that weekend. I knew there was something bigger for me. It all comes from this place around working with high-achieving women, high-level women, and dynamic women, and realizing that they're not happy. They're not where they want to be. Partially true for me and I’ve experienced it many times in my life as well. It was like I had a sore and a band-aid was still hanging on it. It's painful when you have a sore and still have a Band-Aid stuck to it, right? I needed the band-aid to just be ripped off, and I couldn't do it myself. It was slow and painful. It's been hurting for a long time, but I feel that my coach ripped that band-aid off. I had been talking about the past:
All this crazy stuff happened. I've been hanging on to the past. It wasn't serving me, and I'm not doing that anymore. My successes and challenges Now you may look at my life or my business, and say, “You started a whole new area of your business. You started VA Made Easy. That's super successful. You have a team of 16 Virtual Assistants now, and you're doing all these amazing things. You just got interviewed by Jack Canfield, like, how were you sucking or holding on to the past?” Now, yes, I was doing a lot of great things. But have you ever had that inkling that something's not where it needs to be? That you're not exactly in a position where you are the happiest or where it’s meant to be? I keep having these visions, and these feelings that there is something different, but I couldn't pinpoint it. Until my coach called me out. Until she said, “Diane, I think you want to go back into life coaching.” Now, this also may be shocking to you because you think, “Diane, you've always been in life coaching.” What actually happened was in the beginning, I was only doing life coaching (not business coaching). But once I started to build my coaching practice, then my speaking business, then my programs, my women's community, my books, my podcast, and so many pieces. People came to me and said, “Diane, how did you do that? Can you teach me how to do that? Can you show me? Can you guide me? Can you coach me?” I said, “Yes, yes, yes!” I always follow the excitement and the energy. I was totally in alignment with those using my core competencies of teaching, guiding, problem-solving, creativity, strategy, and showing things in another way. They were all great. But what I realized, in my 12 years of coaching, probably the last 8 years, have been 90% business strategy, consulting, and coaching, more so than just the life or women's empowerment and such. It's not to say that's bad. I love working with my clients. I just have this desire to do more in the life coaching world again and do more in women's empowerment. But I couldn't figure out what is my unique positioning statement on this. I'm not going to tell you right now what I think it might be because it's still brewing. It's like if you made a soup, or a stew, or a chili, or a curry. You can eat it right away, but it needs to sit and bubble and boil on the stove so that everything can kind of meld together, all the flavors. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm melding all the flavors together, and I'm trying it on like a new outfit: the new shoes, the new jeans, the new jacket, whatever it may be. I'm putting it on to see how it feels. I'm in that place right now. One thing that was really funny was when my coach and I started talking about the pillars of my brand, I said “Okay, it's about soul satisfaction, about being a Dynamic Woman, and the third pillar would be VA services.” My coach looked at me, and she said, “Diane, we just got you into the sparkly shoes. You got to get out of the work boots.” That's true. I've been putting on the work boots for so long. Probably eight years, like I said. The work boots mean the analytical, the head work, the strategy, the masculine, all of this. I want to wear some sparkly shoes, meaning I want to be in a place that feels more life-giving and energetic, where I have this soul calling. Over those two days in LA, I cried a bunch of times as I was shifted. Going into this mastermind for two days I wanted to have certain outcomes, that's the analytical brain, and I realized I just needed to have this personal shift. On the second day of the mastermind, she said, “What do you want to get out of today?” I said, “If today is just about completing the shift in me, like ripping off that band-aid from being in the work boots, moving into being in the sparkly shoes. I'm good with that.” From there, I went to be interviewed by Jack Canfield, and there were a few other people I knew who were there as well. And they said, “There's something different about you.” I said, “Oh, well, I've lost now over like 32 pounds.” They said, “No, no, there's something different about your energy.” Then I shared about getting out of the work boots, about helping this high-level woman who has been tamed, helping her be wild again. They were like, “Wow, I've never heard this kind of stuff out of you. So cool!” A Team of Coaches?! I’m glad I have put together a team of experts to support me. Why do I have coaches? Because there's always work to be done. For me to be able to serve my clients well, I actually have a few coaches. I have this Business and Marketing Coach, who also will give me a good butt kick here and there. I have a Speaker Business Coach, not actually about how to tell stories, gesture during a speech and all that, but instead how to have a business in speaking. I also have a Business Foundations Coach, a business advisor, who helps me with things like organizing my business, basically things like contracts, agreements, HR stuff, all the things that I don't find fun, she's super helpful. I have a counselor that I meet for my personal life. I talk to the women's pastor at my church to help with my spiritual life. I have a health coach now, and then there are other people here and there that I tap into in order to get some coaching and get some support. I love what Oprah said, “When I became successful, I didn't stop having a coach. I just have more of them.” That's what I have. Wrapping Up I hope you see that it's not about perfection when you’re aiming for success. There will be times when you can’t stay consistently on top of everything, where you don’t have the answers, and change doesn’t feel easy (because it's not). Sometimes you just don't have the clarity, and it's frustrating, but stick with it. Get the help, like Les Brown said, “You can't see the picture when you're in the frame.” I knew that I was in this frame. So many times with coaches, it's kind of like the answer is right in front of my face, and I'm saying, “Oh, is it over here? Is it over here? I just want to know what it is.” Then people point it out to you because they can see the full picture, like my coach did. You have the opportunity to be called forth by them. It is such a blessing to have these kinds of aha moments, to have someone care about you enough to speak the hard truth and to pull you where you need to be. I felt like I had that band-aid ripped off. I felt like I was called out of the darkness, called out of this lack of energy place, and I was reignited. I've had many times in my life where this spark got extinguished, and I had to find a new spark, or I had to reignite it. What's cool about this situation is I've just been reminded about the spark I had for coaching women, high-level women, to feel enough, to be happy in their lives, to stop pushing for more, and to actually be in a place where they can be successful and fulfilled and satisfied. This has been ignited in me. This has been reopened for me, and I've been given complete permission to step fully into this. So, as I figure this out, I’ll let it simmer like a really tasty chili, you're going to get more pieces of info. I'm working on a new signature program, and I'm really pumped about it. It's going to be coming out real soon because I'm on fire about this. Stay tuned! P.S. Have you joined the Dynamic Women Global Community? It’s a free-to-join Facebook group for female business leaders to come together to connect, share, grow, and be inspired. We’d love to see you there! Read my other blogs:
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