Episode Summary:

In this heartfelt and deeply insightful episode, Kristen introduces listeners to a few of the powerhouse coaches behind Sondera — Chuck, Dan, Karen, and Nina — some of the real MVPs walking clients through life-altering transformation work every single day.

These aren’t just any coaches. They’re trauma-informed, certified in many modalities, and deeply aligned with Sondera’s core mission: helping clients step out of a life lived on autopilot and into a life of conscious design. Kristen and the team peel back the curtain on what coaching really looks like, why it’s different from therapy or friendship, and how true transformation happens when safety, trust, and the right tools are in place.

Whether you’re curious about coaching, struggling to break old patterns, or wondering how to finally make real change stick — this episode is your behind-the-scenes look into the soul of Sondera’s approach and the humans guiding it.

In This Episode:

• Meet four of Sondera’s expert coaches and hear their unique coaching philosophies
• What coaching is not — and why it’s often misunderstood
• The role of adaptive personality types and nervous system responses in personal growth
• Why time management issues are often deeper than just “poor planning”
• The critical difference between reflection vs. rumination
• What makes the Sondera process radically different (and wildly effective)
• Client transformation stories that will give you chills

Key Takeaways:

• Coaching isn’t about “fixing” you — it’s about uncovering the truth of who you already are
• Your survival patterns aren’t your personality — they’re just habits your nervous system learned to stay safe
• Sustainable change isn’t about willpower — it’s about awareness, safety, and support
• Men benefit from coaching just as deeply as women, even if the starting point looks different
• You’re not “bad at follow-through” — you’re likely stuck in a subconscious survival response
• Change doesn’t come from shame. It starts with self-compassion.

Notable Quotes:

“We’re not here to fix people — we help them realize they’re both the problem and the solution.” – Karen
“If you’re waiting for your circumstances to get better, you’ll wait your whole life. Coaching helps you get better.” – Kristen
“Your adaptive personality is not who you are. It’s just how you learned to stay safe.” – Nina
“Leadership coaching isn’t just about work. If you’re wonky at home, you’ll bring that to work — and vice versa.” – Chuck
“Coaches aren’t your friends. We’re not here to co-sign your comfort. We’re here to protect the story you’re writing with your life.” – Kristen

Episode Timestamps:

0:00 – Welcome + why this episode is extra special
2:00 – Kristen introduces the vision behind Sondera and its team
3:00 – Meet Karen: executive coach on confidence, clarity, and showing up
6:45 – Meet Chuck: fighting the “default life” and coaching for design
12:30 – Meet Nina: trauma-informed coach bridging mindset and nervous system work
18:40 – Meet Dan: military background, leadership coaching, and redefining resilience
24:00 – Common misconceptions about coaching (especially for men)
33:00 – Why shame never leads to transformation
38:00 – Coaching vs. friendship: why your coach won’t tell you what you want to hear
44:00 – Why you don’t need to “get your ducks in a row” to start coaching
51:00 – The power of assessments, self-awareness, and seeing your growth
1:00:00 – Real client transformation stories from each coach
1:11:00 – Coaching as your “brain trust” to help you write a better story
1:15:00 – Final thoughts + how to explore coaching with Sondera

Want to Explore Coaching?

If you’re tired of repeating the same patterns and ready to live your life by design, not default, book a free breakthrough call with the Sondera team:
Book a Breakthrough Call Here

We’ll help you explore your patterns, unpack what’s keeping you stuck, and see if working with a Sondera coach is the next right step for you.

Loved This Episode?

Share it with a friend, leave a review, or tag us on social @SonderaCoaching with your biggest takeaway. Your story might just inspire someone else’s transformation.

“Coaches aren’t your friends. We’re not here to co-sign your comfort. We’re here to protect the story you’re writing with your life.” – Kristen Boss

Transcript for episode 243: Coaching Is Not What You Think

(00:00:02):

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I have a super special one for you this week. I’ve got some really special people here on the podcast with me. They’re people that have been behind the scenes doing the real work. I’m going to call them the real MVPs. I have been talking about our new company sondera this year, and I’m excited about bringing these coaches on because they have just been wrapping up their work with all of our latest one-on-one clients that were with us, and we continue to have clients trickling in. But I thought it would be really great to have the coaches themselves, the rock stars, the people that I think so highly of that when I’m talking about change, because there’s only me, I can only do so much. So I knew when we built this company that I would want to bring in high level expert coaches that I could entrust this really precious work to.

(00:01:03):

Because when we work with people, when we are talking about transformation and growth and changing areas of your life, that I would say is precious, sacred space. And so I really wanted to ensure that this was entrusted to the right people and people that were highly trained, highly qualified. So they’re not going to brag on themselves as much as I would brag on them. So I’m just going to take a minute and brag on just how amazing these people truly are. We went through a pretty extensive vetting process when we were coming up with Sondera, and so they submitted video applications. We wanted experienced coaches, not new coaches, coaches that were able to coach in many different avenues, whether it’s marriage, health, productivity, the corporate landscape, brick and mortar, family owned business. These coaches really have a gambit of what they excel in and the work that they do.

(00:02:02):

And so from there, then they went through several rounds of video interviews. I asked them the hard questions. They flew out to Colorado Springs for an intensive training. And so they have been walking through with our clients and I am just so honored that they’re here on the podcast with me. So today I have Chuck, I have Dan, I have Karen, I have Nina. We have more coaches, but this is a time that worked for a few of them to be on. So I’m excited. I’m going to be kind of asking a bunch of questions and I’ll have them briefly when I call on them, I’ll have them briefly just introduce themselves. And actually before we even get into the questions, I’m going to have you guys go around and introduce yourself. I’ll kind of call you out, so not everybody’s talking at once, but if you could just say a little bit about yourself and why you love coaching. And yeah, we’ll just go from there. So I’ll start with you, Karen, because you’re the biggest picture on my screen right now.

(00:03:00):

Well, I’m so excited to be here and tremendously humbled and honored. I am an ICF certified business and executive coach. Love coaching people on mindset, confidence and clarity, especially when it comes to how they show up as the owner of the business. And so that’s been probably my specialty and one of the things I’ve loved best about working with the SO team.

(00:03:25):

Oh, I love that so much. Karen. What actually, I’m going to ask, I’ll ask one more question before we go to the next person. You’ve done, you’ve done a lot of coaching out there and you are with the Sondera team. What, as a coach, what’s different about coaching within Sonera as opposed to coaching elsewhere?

(00:03:45):

Well, I coach independently and I do have another opportunity that I coach with. And I think the thing that stands out the most for me about the Sondera opportunity is the resources that you have created for clients. Because you don’t just throw them into a coaching scenario. You actually give them all of these resources that can help them to have the best holistic life because we know how you do anything is how you do everything. And so you help them to regulate, you help them, we identify their fight, fight, flight, freeze or fawn. And once you understand that and you get a real basis and then that baseline, then you give them resources to help them with where they are and then we can help them get to where they want to be. And so it just goes from the very baseline to optimal. And that’s really the gift of coaching is we’re not here for therapy.

(00:04:51):

We are here to take someone that’s doing okay, but they want to do great. And so we give them the support, the resources, and then you give them this huge toolbox that they can tap into at any time, 24 7 to hear your voice, your guidance with the somatic work affirmations, I mean, you name it, it is in this box. It is so amazing the dashboard that you’ve created. And I think that it just gives them 24 7 support. So no matter where they are, they can get help on the road, on the phone, on their dashboard and the desktop, wherever they are. So that has been a life-changing difference for all the clients I’ve worked with.

(00:05:34):

I love that. And it’s fun being able to provide a toolbox to the coaches to help you in your work with the clients in their off time.

(00:05:42):

It’s been, I love that. Phenomenal. I mean personally it’s also helped me because we get to learn it before we help them. And so it’s just been transformational for me personally and for the clients I’ve supported. And I’m so glad I got to go first. I got to say that answer. So now you’ll have to come up with something different.

(00:05:59):

I love it. And Karen, I’m going to invite you into the we language, just as much of sonera as I am. So instead of Kristen creating the tools, I mean I might’ve ideated, but you are definitely, we’re a we here and it absolutely, you definitely earned that language. We’re we. Thank you.

(00:06:15):

It is a, it’s a family. It’s a support system that people come in and they don’t realize and sometimes they don’t have to take advantage of all of it, but it’s all there for them to walk through at their pace with our guidance. And so I’m just tremendously honored. You have done such a fabulous job.

(00:06:35):

We have done so

(00:06:36):

Great. Okay. You put it together, we get to facilitate it. It’s amazing.

(00:06:40):

I love that. So good, Karen, let’s go to Chuck.

(00:06:46):

Alright, so yeah, so I’m coach Chuck and I think about how to answer that question. And I reflected back to 2016, I was on a walk and talk with a good friend and a mentor and I was in a bit of a wilderness season and he asked me, so what breaks your heart? What kills you is the way he said it, what kills you? And my answer was the default life. And he said, so what does that mean? I said, it’s the get up, go to work, come home, kiss the spouse, walk the dog, watch Jeopardy, go to bed, do it up, get up and do it again the next day. Not that there’s anything wrong with any one of those things, but if it becomes that deep rut. And he said, okay, so if that kills you, then what thrills you? And I said, well, I guess it’d be some version of the opposite of that, which what I called was the life of design, an intentional design that would lead to a life of purpose and passion and intentionality that I think would bring things like joy and contentment.

(00:07:44):

And he said, have you considered life coaching? And I said, is that a thing? And he laughed and he said, you should go home and Google it. And so I went home and googled it and guess what? It was a thing. So that was 2016. I too Emma and trained in an ICF school certified in 20, well, schooling in 2017, certified in 2018. And I like to say that I’m a life coach for those who lead. I started out with leadership coaching, but I figured out along the way that if you coach a leader just in his leadership responsibilities, you could get some things really dialed in. But if there’s other areas of life that they’re a mess in, it bleeds, right? If you’re wonky, I like to say, if you’re wonky at home, you’re going to take that to work and vice versa. So I love to coach the whole person. Did that answer the question? I remember

(00:08:40):

I’d love so much. I love so much that you talked about the default life. I’m like, I hope he brings it up because Chuck, that is what when you sent in your video interview to apply with us, when you said that, I was like, oh, his heart breaks for the same thing mine does when someone is living their life in default and not by design or intention, not realizing just how beautiful life can be when you decide to take agency and realize that you have choice and that we give, we get to give clients the tools to start choosing differently and it’s so good. You coming from ICF certification, what has kind of been different for you? Coaching within So and how we approach change?

(00:09:30):

Yeah, I was actually kind of noodling on that thought earlier and two thoughts come to mind. One was, one of my favorite things is to talk about vision. The fact that we’re unique in this entire crazy amazing, wonderful world that we can actually see it tomorrow. It’s different than today. We can cast vision and then we can bring it to reality. And the other thing is we have this thing called free will. This moment between stimulus and response where we can pause and we can breathe and we can reflect and we can respond. But the problem is it’s one thing to know these things, it’s another thing to do them. And I think that the distance to go from here to here, that’s really what Sondera is because to have the intellectual understanding is one thing and then to even have a desire to do it, we still know that even with the awareness, we are creatures of habit. And so what do we do to change our outcomes? Well, we have to change our behaviors. In order to do that, we have to had to break the mold. And what Sonera does is it helps us with that process of, wait a minute,

(00:10:47):

Here we are reacting again instead of taking the time and pausing it. So as somebody who lived in that leadership space, very much a high performance, taking new territory mindset for so long realized there was a lot of that was done with bravado and willpower and gumption and sometimes fear. A lot of it’s fear driven. And so what son did for me was to say, the picture that came to my mind earlier today was, I dunno if this works, but as the idea that your ultimate life could be represented in a vehicle that was all tricked out and it was the most amazing vehicle to get you what you want. But Sondera is like the gas in the tank and without the gas, the best of you have the best of means, but it’s not going to go anywhere.

(00:11:43):

Oh, so

(00:11:43):

Good. There you go, Karen. That’s the best thing I could do to say what you said without saying what you said. That’s

(00:11:48):

Pretty good. It’s just going to get harder for Dan and Nina. That’s so good. Chuck and Chuck, what does one of our clients call you? What’s his nickname for you?

(00:12:01):

Oh my. Oh, Chuck, GVT.

(00:12:05):

I love it. We just had to share that here. So good, Chuck, that was from his wife. Your client’s wife is just like, oh, what’s Chuck GPT have to say? So if son built a bot, we might call it Chuck GPT. So good. All right, let’s go to Nina. Nina, come on my friend.

(00:12:27):

Hi everyone. Hi Kristen. What an honor it is to be here with you guys. I am a trauma-informed life coach. I come from the world of mindset coaching and I spent years in mindset coaching alone. And what I realized is I wasn’t getting the results I saw other people getting

(00:12:47):

And why I wasn’t getting results is that I was not paying attention at all to my body, no nervous system work. I knew my thoughts, created my feelings, but I never paid attention to the feeling line of the mindset model. And I just kept hitting a wall and I thought, I’ve got to figure this out. And so I’ve kind of gone down the path of learning about the nervous system, learning about trauma, learning about how trauma affects transformation and how trauma can get in the way of transformation. I like to call myself the coach that bridges both together in order to affect change, help my clients affect change. Yeah.

(00:13:30):

Yeah, it’s so good. I think when people hear trauma, they automatically, a lot of people opt out of that if they haven’t seen Big T trauma in their life, they’re like, my life’s been pretty good. I haven’t dealt with your typical big T trauma labeled abuse or those things. So that wouldn’t apply to me. We actually have a lot of misconceptions about trauma in and of itself. So given, I’m actually going to give you a little bit of a moment here, but how would you describe that to somebody who would be like, well, that’s not me.

(00:14:07):

Yeah, the best way to describe, so you might hear us both say Big T, little T trauma, and we often forget about what we call little T trauma.

(00:14:19):

It is too much too soon. And what trauma isn’t what happens to us, it’s what happens inside of us. So for example, what we would think is a small T trauma, maybe you’re a little kid and your parents were late picking you up from school. Nobody would probably see that as a trauma, but something happened inside you as a kid, and it turns into what we call safety strategies, survival patterns in our nervous system. What happens is we give meaning to it. Nobody cares about me, I’m not good enough, I’m by myself, whatever that is. And then once we take on that meaning and our little child brain gives it a meaning,

(00:15:11):

We

(00:15:11):

Don’t have control over that and we don’t know what is happening, but it’s not just a meaning in our brain, like a belief system. It’s also a pattern in our nervous system now. And so then it becomes our subconscious pattern. And that’s what we do so good here at Sondera is that we help you see your own patterns, we help you become aware of it. And if we’re not aware of our patterns, we can’t do anything about them. And usually those patterns, and that was just one example of trauma, usually those patterns repeated over time become what we think is our personality.

(00:15:46):

Yes, yep.

(00:15:48):

Yeah.

(00:15:49):

And this is why we say we have our adaptive personality types, which is really just how you default to how your nervous system seeks safety and security when you are feeling dysregulated at any point. And so really it’s like what I like to tell people is like this is just your automatic response for how you seek relief when stress enters your nervous system. And so you doing this work and with the lens of our clients understanding their adaptive personality type, how they respond to their stressors, how is this helpful for their change?

(00:16:31):

I think number one is anytime anybody who’s, sorry, anytime someone realizes I’ve been in my adaptive personality pattern,

(00:16:43):

There’s a lot of judgment at the beginning about themself and sometimes our clients can be full of shame. And so that’s always my first step is making sense of it. Why does it make sense that when you’re under stress, you have a fight pattern or you have a shutdown pattern and you freeze, let’s make sense of it and let’s remove the shame because shame never breeds transformation. It breeds the same of what we don’t want. So for me, that’s always the very first step is shaming the pattern. And then now we’re like, oh, if I can accept that, oh, this is the way my body survives. I under stress, this is what it does to keep me alive, and then I get to work with it. Now I know what’s happening and I don’t. For example, I have a adaptive personality type of a freeze, and I used to always just label myself as lazy and I’m a procrastinator and I am full of shame about that. But now I know, oh, my system has just gone into a freeze, into a shutdown, and now I know what tools I need to bring myself up to a more safety state or more regulated state so then I can take action and then vice versa with any other response.

(00:18:03):

Yeah, I love the way that you explained that, and it’s true. This is like, we call it our personality, but it’s not. It’s just your survival pattern that’s been running on default. And again, this is why it’s very hard to spot ourselves because it’s on the subconscious level because it happens so quickly and this is why we do this work and why sonder? Because like you said, if we aren’t aware of it, we just keep repeating it. And so love so much how you explain that, Nina, so good. And now we’ll move to last, but certainly not least we’ll bring on Dan. Dan the man.

(00:18:41):

Hello. I feel like the applause button is appropriate.

(00:18:44):

I’ll give it to you.

(00:18:47):

No thanks. Hey, I like everyone else. I’m also excited to be here. So I think my story is a little bit different than most here in this group, and I think that’s the story of my life is I’ve always sought opportunities to challenge the status quo, and over the years have creatively curated ways to do so that aren’t completely disruptive. So it didn’t start that way. Of course in high school it was very disruptive and then it’s transformed. Since I retired from the military, Nina spoke about trauma and I spent a good portion of my career in the army as a sexual assault victim advocate, coupled with master resiliency training and naturally realized that one, I love working with people. I love looking for opportunities to improve the way future leaders will lead. That’s what I took with me from the military, and that’s what I pursued afterwards. In this world we call coaching life, coaching general life coaching. I like to work with leaders and challenge them to push themselves even harder to get out of their own way. Some people might call that what Nina was just talking about even was the self-confidence piece,

(00:20:11):

Questioning their decisions. And so I empowering them to make educated choices that will push them beyond their comfort zone and in many cases beyond what they thought possible. That’s what I love about this world we call coaching, why I’m here. And Sondera brings lots of unique things. One of them personal to me is this group of coaches that we are talking with at this moment.

(00:20:43):

I agree with you, Dan. I have the privilege of being on the calls with weekly calls with these coaches, just answering their questions, supporting their clients, hearing their wins. We care. I like to think of us all as a transformation board for our Sondera clients who are entrusting us with the most sacred thing, their life, their families, their work. And so we walk on sacred ground. And so we have a rich conversations. I will say each of these coaches has spoken into me as they have watched me build this thing, try things over and over again. I think they’ve seen a masterclass in the back of resilience and getting up again and again and just constantly casting vision. But I will say something that has been, I don’t know, just a great privilege for me and an honor for me is just like, wow, the fact that this vision has brought in such high caliber people, I’m super humbled by that and that they’re so bought in over time.

(00:22:00):

When they came in as a startup, I was like, guys, I don’t know. This could be a total flop. I might have no work for you. And they’re all like, sign us up. We’re all in. I was like, what? I don’t know what I’ve done to earn this level of trust, but they’re just such good people and I’m just so delighted I get to share them with our Sondera members. And so what I want to do is I want to kind of address some questions. I think a lot of people have assumptions or ideas of what they think coaching is versus what it actually is. And so even sometimes when people ask me what I do, I even find, I struggle just saying life coaching because I’m like, oh, they have this idea that they’re going to think it’s like this. I don’t know if they think of a Tony Robbins or a Fluffy, I don’t know. But oftentimes I’m like, oh, I like to say, oh, we do performance and productivity coaching because that registers for people. They’re like, oh yeah, I like performance, I like productivity. But if we were to say whole life, they’re like, oh, okay. People don’t know what to do with it. So I would love, what would you guys say, Dan, I’ll start with you because we ended with you and you work with men and women, but what do you think people assume coaching is versus what it actually is? What would you say to that?

(00:23:28):

I think there’s so many answers to that really. I have a neighbor who does sound healing, and I think many people, if they think about coaching, if they hear life coaching that it’s going to be some woo woo type of experience that may make men in particular for some reason uncomfortable. And they might think, again, this is speaking more from a man’s perspective, but they might often I hear that, oh, my wife might need that, but that’s not for me or my girlfriend or my sister, whatever it may be. That’s a woman’s thing. And that’s not true. I think there’s a lot of answers. They might think, well, honestly, it’s completely ambiguous until they can hear these kinds of conversations or until they can experience it for themselves.

(00:24:26):

We’ve even had people with, so I’ve had wives sign their husbands up for interview calls, they’re like, you should do this, you should do this. And then they kind of come to the call with a blank stare in their face. They’re like, if my wife signed me up for this, I don’t know why I’m here. And that’s always kind of fun. But I do think there is maybe a misconception that it’s like this soft thing that circulates around your feelings and therefore feels I don’t need it. And so Dan, if you could just speak to the male listeners on helping them understand the benefit of coaching for the men out there.

(00:25:10):

Oh man. Yeah, thanks. I would love to just say that the benefit I mentioned a minute ago is learning how to be more confident in yourself and the decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis.

(00:25:27):

If you’ve ever questioned a decision that you’ve made, it may be great to have a conversation with someone who can speak life into you or empower you because we have other viewpoints that we can share together. It’s a conversation, it’s not feelings based, it’s not specific to any trauma or any of the things that we’ve all discussed here. It’s a conversation. We help get to the root of what it is that you want to do with your life, with your work, with your relationships, whatever it may be. And by asking good questions, we uncover those dreams and we help you build a plan.

(00:26:15):

So good. Chuck, what would you say to that? What would you putting you on the spot now, Chuck.

(00:26:22):

The note I just scribbled to myself was that people can know what we teach, but they’ll become who we are. If I think about a leader and in a male circle, this idea that people, they’ll know what you teach them, but you’re going to reproduce who you are. That was the phrase I was looking for. We’ll reproduce who we are and think about, I’m thinking specifically about large and in charge, taking new territory controllers, hard drivers. Oftentimes if we can slow down long enough and even ask that question, if you, if raise up leaders as a leader, raising up leaders, if you reproduce who you are, would you consider that successful? And to Dan’s point, I think it’s like if we can get ’em to slow down long enough and really think about that, who am I? Not who people think I am, not who I think I need to be in the workplace or in the home, but who am I really? And is that what I define that as success? And so some of the thoughts I had when you think about coaching men, I immediately think words like pride and ego in comparison.

Speaker 1 (00:27:49):

Yeah, don’t go soft, don’t hold back their chuck.

(00:27:53):

It just, but it breaks my heart. I’ve been in circles where men, you get a small group of guys in a circle, which is hard to do, but if you can get a group, but then how quickly, instead of recognizing that there’s an incredible opportunity here to collaborate and to learn and to grow and to serve and encourage each other, it becomes the comparison game very quickly. And it’s like I got masks is another thought that just came to mind. So we put on our mask, and I think coaching is an opportunity to say, Hey, this is, dunno if I want to use this term. It’s got a weird connotation, but this is the no judgment zone, but let’s put our masks down and let’s figure out who are we really going back to the idea of that default versus design life, man, are we really operating out of our gifts and our talents and is our life and alignment with our core values, what we really believe to be true and really believe to be right, man. And that can be such an amazing, I was a corporate guy my whole life, and so I lived in that very performance based

(00:29:09):

Arena where people were celebrated for what they did. Rarely celebrated for who they are.

(00:29:15):

Oh dang. Yep. So good there, Chuck. Man, I was going to say something and then you just kind of had that mic drop, so I’m like, cool. We’re just going to let that go. But gosh, I appreciate that. So good. I’m going to ask Karen, Karen, what is a misconception people have around coaching versus what it really is?

(00:29:42):

I was listening to Chuck and one of the things that came up, and I guess this leads to what Dan was saying too, is people come in thinking we’re going to fix them. Like, okay, here I am, here’s all my problems. They dump it all, fix me thinking that we’re just here as a teacher, we’re going to give them all of the steps and do it for them or we’re going to have all the answers. And I think the beauty of what coaching really is is helping people see that they are the problem and the solution to everything that they’re struggling with.

(00:30:22):

And once they realize that and they realize that they’re either choosing this, manifesting it, or allowing it, and they can change that, they really get to take full ownership of their life and decide if this isn’t what I want, I get to change that. And I say that from a place of we aren’t there to judge, we aren’t there to tell them it’s right or it’s wrong. We’re there to hold the space for them so that they feel safe enough to process it. And I think that’s the beauty of coaching. And then the additional beauty of what we do at Sondera is we give them those tools and resources, the somatic tools and the adaptive resources so that they can just be held in a safe place because as Nina said, it’s about what’s going on inside as much as it is what’s going on around us. And when they feel safe enough to allow those things to begin to happen and to begin seeing the correlation of how I’m showing up in my marriage is also what’s going on in some relationships at work where I’m pushing people away or I’m trying to control to stay safe. And when they realize we’re all just trying to stay safe and get through this journey alive and none of us are going to make it out alive. So

(00:31:57):

You’re right, I think when we can have some humor and feel safe and feel valuable and see that this is all a choice that we’re making and if we can take back the power to change it, it just makes it such a beautiful transition. And that to me, people think they’re going to come in and we’re going to fix it, and they get to see that it doesn’t have to be fixed, but they get to change it if they want to. And we give them the tools, the power and the space to do that, to process it all.

(00:32:33):

That’s such an important thing you mentioned is just oftentimes when people are finally coming to coaching, this is the first place they are learning to see themselves as a resource versus constantly looking for external solutions for an internal problem. So I will even say this is in the personal development space, most people approach personal development from that. I just need to fix myself space versus the I need to understand myself so that I can partner with myself better instead of, it’s almost like they go into this, I need to kill off these parts of me. I’m like, wait, hold on. These parts of you,

(00:33:20):

They have served you for some time. And often those parts, those are your survival patterns and they have served you for quite some time. It’s like, okay, but how do we operate no longer from survival but from a different way of being? And I have a reel that’s sitting in my drafts right now. I put down me when I realized that my last business was one giant trauma response that happened to make me very successful because my survival pattern was like, stay busy, achieve, and just make sure you are staying ahead. And so that worked out very well in my favor, but our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness and that came at a great cost. So what does it look like to find these parts of myself and partner with them from a place of compassion rather than a place of judgment? And so just like Nina was saying, one of the things we almost have to do with all of our clients when they first come to us is they have to go through a desham process because that’s the first place we go.

(00:34:23):

They come to coaching with shame. I’m here because I suck, because I tried everything and this is the last thing and this nothing else has worked up until this point. And that is the thing with this coaching is like, and actually Nina, I’m going to have you answer this question, is so many people by the time they come to coaching and they say yes to it, it’s because everything else they’ve tried hasn’t worked. And so there is this big scary like, oh my gosh, so why would this be the thing that finally works for me when I have nothing but a track record of letting myself down prior to this? And I believe this is one of the number one barriers to coaching because they have so much broken self-trust that they’re like to get a coach feels like even more of an irresponsible thing because look at my track record, look at my track record. So I’m probably going to suck with a coach. So Nina, what would you say to that? I know this is huge because a lot of people,

(00:35:28):

It is like you just hit the nail on the head with your statement already. What I would say and what’s really coming up for me in this conversation, and it’s like everybody is sparking things within me like, oh, I want to share this, but Karen said, they come to us saying, this is all of me. This is what I tried in the past and this is what I’ve done and all of this and fix me. And if you have ever felt that way, I’m with you. I raised my hand to that. That was my very first coaching session. And because us coaches can do that, I raised my hand to that. It creates a safety container, meaning you’re safe with me because I’m not judging you, you’re judging you enough for you. And I’m a safe non-judgmental space. And there’s something that happens with somebody else’s nervous system and our nervous system that creates what we call co-regulation.

(00:36:33):

Okay, now I feel safe, I can drop the judgment. But here’s where I think sometimes we think coaching is our friend. Coaches aren’t your friends. Coaches will say to you, oh, where else do you try to get other people to fix you? Let me help you. Where else are you outsourcing? You’re dropping your stuff off and saying, fix me. Who else are you trusting where you’re not trusting yourself? And then we invite you into what I call self-reflection, introspection. It’s required for coaching to work. Our questions aren’t for us, they’re for you. And so we teach you that. I think it’s a learned trait, like how to really reflect, oh, I have this pattern where I outsource and I think other people can fix me and not me. I think that’s what I would add to this conversation is this realization that they, with safety, then transformation internally can happen where it needs to happen, but we’re all trying to change it from the external place.

(00:37:45):

Oh, Nina, you said so many good things and I want to just reiterate on raising your hand. Me too. Me too. I have a hundred percent been guilty of thinking this is going to be the coach that rescues me. This is going to be the coach that has the magic. But when you said the real skill of reflection, it is a learned skill to truly learn how to reflect versus what most people do is they ruminate. And ruminate is sitting there with a story of here’s why I was wrong. It’s with judgment, it’s rehashing. It’s like, why do I suck? Whereas reflection is trying to understand what pattern showed up there. And I wonder what I was telling myself that had me live into that and behaviorally reinforce that story. I was telling myself, that takes time. We are not born with this skill. This is a skill we are taught.

(00:38:48):

And so at the beginning, it not to get too religious or preachy, but I think it was like how many times did Jesus answer someone’s question in the Bible? Whereas 99% of the, he only answered it three times where most of the time he asked him with a question. And so a good coach doesn’t tell you the right answer. They ask you a good question, and we know a coaching experience has been done well, when at the end of it, you can finally see how to ask yourself the right questions. But in the beginning, you do need someone there who’s willing to risk the relationship, risk your good opinion of them. Like yes, we work hard to create a safe space and a safe container. And by the way, every single one of these coaches, we have gone through extensive trainings on how to facilitate and create safety and trust with a client.

(00:39:44):

Because if there’s no safety and trust, nothing’s going to happen in the relationship. And I always tell our clients, they’re like, what do I need to do? I’m like, bring your effort, we bring and we will match you. Just bring your effort, bring willingness. If you bring effort, you bring willingness. We will meet you there and we will bring our excellence. If you bring your effort, we will bring our excellence. And we’re not even asking for perfection. But here’s the thing, people are like, oh, why can’t I just have my friends? I’m like, because your friends won’t risk the relationship to say the hard truth. And they’re not trained to spot your patterns. They are often, they will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. And a good friend can maybe step into that role. But also I don’t want my, for me, I even tell my friends, I’m like, listen, I don’t want to be your coach.

(00:40:35):

I want to be your friend. If you want me to put, and I have this conversation with my friends often I’m like, Hey, do you want your friend in this conversation or do you want me to put on my coaching hat? And I’ll say, most of the time they’ll just say, can you just be my friend? I’m like, cool. And in that I’m meeting them in their mess. I’m like, yeah, that totally sucks. Yeah, you should be mad. And that’s terrible. And I can’t believe that happened. We’re meeting them in their outrage, right? We’re like, ah, yeah, how could they or whatever. But a coach, do not get in that with you. Our job is to stay neutral and to always keep your highest and best interest in our mind, regardless of your opinion of us when we ask the hard question. But if we’ve built a safe container, you’ll feel safe when we ask the question. It might get a little uncomfortable. You might sweat the color might get a little tight, but that’s when it’s good. That’s where the good stuff is. But this is why your friends aren’t coaches. Chuck, I see. You’re like, let me speak.

(00:41:36):

I see Chuck scribbling. I’m like, I know. Say

(00:41:40):

Chuck. The first thought that came to mind when something Nina said, what I wrote down was a problem well-defined is half solved already. I think that might be attribute, I don’t know who it’s attributed to, maybe Winston Churchill, but the idea of just getting to shine a light on something takes its power away. And to your point about Kristen, when we’re trying to do things on our own, we just sit and spin with it. We just ruminate on it and it just gets more power. But when you have an opportunity to finally be bold and say it out loud to somebody, the other thought I had is when you’ll hear somebody say, oh, don’t get your hopes up. That’s typically coming from somebody that loves you and wants to protect you. They want what’s best for you. So you made a comment about sometimes our friends tell us what we want to hear. Well, that’s true. But sometimes too, what we tell them is, well, we want to protect them, but sometimes that’s not what we need. Or as a coach will tell you what if you will need to hear. But that idea of just giving yourself the gift of being able to say something out loud that you wouldn’t dare say to anybody else can be an absolute game changer.

(00:43:06):

Maybe on a little more humorous side, I wrote down, yeah, I’ll start going to the gym once I get in shape. That’s ludicrous. But how often do we actually tend to live our lives that way, once I get my stuff together, then I’ll go see my coach,

(00:43:24):

Because why I hear this all the time.

(00:43:28):

Well, I would say, I think I would speak for us all pretty clearly. Say no, please bring your whole self, not your perfected self. Just bring your whole self, your most honest self to the conversation and let’s see where it leads.

(00:43:41):

I’m like, it’s so funny. People will be like, let me just get my ducks in a row. I’m like, how long have you been trying to get your ducks in a row? They’re like, yeah, good point. I’m like, listen, if you could have gotten your ducks in a row without a coach, you would’ve already done it by now. And they’re like, oh yeah, good point. And it’s just like, but we wait. We defer also because it’s the unknown. And so that’s kind of why I wanted to have this conversation was it’s kind of like de-stigmatize and normalize. What is coaching? What is that like? And I will say this, I think this is important. I think some people are deeply afraid that they’re going to flounder, that they’re going to let themselves down, even in a coaching relationship, they’re going to be like, all right, cool.

(00:44:19):

I’m going to invest in a coach, but what if I don’t show up? But what if I’m like, oh, you’re definitely going to mess up. Oh, it’s going to happen for sure. But they’re so terrified of ruining their investment because they’ve quote ruined other investments. And I’m just like, okay, chance that you are going to default into a pattern. But what better way to do it with a coach, with you to understand, okay, let’s figure out why that happened, what went on there? But there’s a lot of fear that they’re like, I’m going to flounder, and I’ve tried to tell coaches this or clients that are exploring this opportunity and whoever wants to take this one, we are not there. We are not glorified babysitters. We cannot do it for them. I always think of Sam Wise, gaji Lord of the Rings, where he is like, I cannot carry the ring for you, but I can carry you.

(00:45:14):

It’s like, I can’t do this task for you, but I can shoulder you to the task. And so how is it if someone’s like, what do I just show up every week and I just talk? Is it like I think some people have been to therapy, and I’m like, okay, it’s not talk therapy. You’re not just coming and dumping with your coach every week. We actually have a process to ensure you aren’t getting lost. So can you guys, whoever wants to take it, can you speak to our process that we walk our clients through to ensure that they’re not floundering or left to their own devices and also not babysitting. It’s a very fine line. We walk, but we care for our clients. Whoever wants to take that, just raise your hand and all. Yeah, Nina, I’ll let you speak to that one.

(00:46:00):

Okay. So the great thing about Sondera is we have a framework. I think Karen mentioned it earlier with the tools, but there’s a framework, right? There’s the external shell, the guide for example, of where we’re going with you,

(00:46:17):

And we’re using that framework to help you identify some things that are important to you, your core values, discovering what your true desires are, and then we’re also helping you discover what your patterns are. And so for example, if you think you’re going to flounder, you probably are, and then you also have a pattern of how you treat yourself and behave when you do flounder. So we’re going to help you discover that and how to maybe, for lack of better words, like fail better, fell in a better way, move quicker out of those patterns, right? Maybe in the past you stayed in a shame cycle for two, three months before you took steps forward to that goal or dream. We’re going to help you shorten that time. I think the biggest thing is that in order for Sondera to be effective for you, you have to understand the human experience. And in order to understand the human experience, you have to understand that 95% of what we think, feel, and do is unconscious. So if you think you’re going to flounder, you probably are, because we’re unconscious beings and we repeat the past until somebody helps you shine a flashlight on that pattern.

(00:47:31):

And then we help you actually lean into, okay, I saw the pattern, I was in it. How do I take the very next step so I don’t continue that pattern over and over and over again?

(00:47:46):

It’s always so fun. People aren’t, if they’re listening and not seeing the video, I just love that we’re all enthusiastically nodding our heads as coaching. And Karen was giving the snaps. It’s always fun getting a bunch of coaches on a call when we’ve coached people for so long and we’re like, yes, that’s it. Yes, speak. Nina. Who else wants to add to that, the supportive guide to ensuring success in the program? Nina? I think you explained it well. Dan, do you want to speak to it? Nope, Chuck,

(00:48:16):

I was going to say, let’s make sure we call it the assessments.

00:48:19):

Oh, yeah, I don’t if you want to speak to those.

(00:48:22):

Go. I speak to it, Chuck, speak to it from the coach’s perspective. I can speak to it from my perspective, but in the

(00:48:28):

Coach, it goes back to Client relationship, how important?

(00:48:30):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because we’ve used the term woo woo before. Sometimes when you’re shining light on problems and the growth, the outcomes aren’t always necessarily really measurable or obvious, but Sonera comes along and says, Hey, what if we were able to actually assess and measure a client’s progress? And it’s a gift for the coach. It can be so helpful to say to Nina’s point, like, Hey, maybe we’re still feeling like we’re stumbling, but we’re stumbling forward. And let’s look at the trend of how you are evaluating yourself in these a dozen, nearly a dozen different areas over time and have so for the coach to be able to see, yes, there’s evidence that they’re growing, but then for the client, the same thing to be able to see it. I could just call out this one example, which I think is just really, really powerful. And as a client that, how do I just say this? Really clearly, significant challenges in areas of marriage and finances and medical disability and special needs kids all under one roof. Well, here’s the thing. Those aren’t problems that were easily solved, but her response to those circumstances is the scoring won’t make sense probably to a lot of the audience. But on the emotional regulation and stress management, this client on day one evaluated herself with a score of 16, and I think 50 is the top of the scale. And her most recent evaluation was a 39. She went from a 16, and then in her own words, she’s like, we didn’t necessarily solve the problems. They’re not necessarily things to be solved.

(00:50:37):

Special needs child is a special needs child. But her response to it has changed so much. What she said was, I found my voice. So in all these challenges, she found her voice, she found how to address it, how to show up as her best self so that then she could have the best possible impact on. The assessments are huge to be able to shine a light on the specific areas of growth, and then also to reveal maybe where we should dig in deeper.

(00:51:09):

So good. And we always say this, we never use the tools to weaponize against ourselves. We always use it as a form of awareness and data to understand where we want to lean in. It’s not tools for shame, it’s awareness, and it’s pause for celebration, and there’s going to be some seasons. This isn’t linear and it’s ongoing. And I think what’s interesting is I think not only do clients truly change, I also believe clients learn the skill of self-compassion in even how they score themselves. When shame isn’t setting the score, I actually think part of the score changes because the relationship with themselves change, and all the coaches are nodding. They’re like, yes, Karen, did you want to add to that real quick, Karen? Yeah,

(00:51:57):

Yeah, I’m over here. Yes, I have more to add. This is so good. So right when coaches get on a call, it’s just like, we just keep building this momentum. But hearing what Chuck said about the assessments, I see the assessments as almost like this permission slip for them to lovingly accept where they are and to see that what they’re doing isn’t right or wrong, it’s just where they are. There is, we talked about judgment before, but the assessment give them this gift of, okay, this is what it is, and now I get to choose what’s next. So do I want to continue protecting myself in that way? Is that serving me or do I want to start listening to some outside perspectives? Because, and I say this all the time, we can’t see our own blind spots. We know that, but we also can’t see the perspectives and all the choices when we’re only focused on the problem. And I think that’s the beauty of what coaching does, is coaches allow, we get to see the whole 365 or 360 degree view, 365 days.

(00:53:21):

We can get a little more than 360,

(00:53:25):

Like a seven 20. But we get to see all of this from an outside perspective. We’re not invested in what’s going on. And I think what you said about, do you want me to be a friend right now? We also do that for our kids too, right? Okay, I have adult kids. Do you want me to be mom right now? Do you want me to be your friend or do you want me to come out this problem from the perspective of a coach?

(00:53:52):

Because I can sit here with it and commensurate and we can sit here and say how crappy this situation is. Or I can give you guidance as a mom and tell you what my heart would want for you. Or I can impartially say, here’s some perspective and options on how you chose and how we got here and what could be next. And how do you feel about that? How is it serving you? Do you really want to move those powerful, open-ended questions are such a gift, but those assessments really just give you that permission slip to say, okay, yeah, this is where we’re starting from. No judgment, but is it working that doctor feels saying, how’s that working out for you?

(00:54:36):

Maybe it’s, it’s so true. And how’s that

Working out for you? How’s that working out for you? Yes,

(00:54:43):

Chuck gave an example of a client win. If each of you think of just one, a client win that you have just been, and I really love that Chuck said, some problems cannot be solved. This is huge. I do think some people are waiting for their life to get better by waiting for their circumstances to get better, and they’re just in a holding pattern their whole life. Because circumstances keep happening, surprise, life is still life, and some circumstances never change. Special disabilities and things like that. And so if there’s not a problem that we can solve, then the only thing we can do is we change with our circumstance. So if anyone wants to share a client ne, and I saw you unmute yourself, what’s a client story you got to be a part of?

(00:55:35):

Yeah, I have so many client stories like Chuck had mentioned, so I won’t duplicate that. But I had a client recently in her six month period, her coaching package. And the biggest thing that really hit her, which I didn’t realize it was going to be, she was leaving. She had left the corporate world and went to consulting for herself. And she in her corporate world and military background, was so used to having values for the corporate world. She would choose her values as an employee and choose her values in the military, but she had never done it personally for herself. And I think that was her feedback that that was the biggest impact because once she identified her top values as a human for herself, then she could identify, oh, where am I not thinking, feeling, or acting in accordance with those values? And that gave her direction. And once she started working on getting an alignment with those values, everything seemed to just fall into place in her consulting because she was doing her own inner work. It was really powerful.

(00:56:53):

I find that this comes up actually a lot with our clients is when they understand their values, they see them for the first time, so many will realize, holy, so much of my life has been living outside of my own values and values that were given to me by somebody else, or expectations I’ve been trying to live into. No wonder this has felt so uncomfortable and awkward. No wonder I haven’t been wanting to move forward because even subconsciously, there’s a part of me that knows this is not in alignment with my values. So good. Karen, what you got?

(00:57:28):

Yeah. So playing off of that thought, my client that came to mind immediately came to us because she really wanted to work on time management. She really felt like this is the big one. Yep. That was her biggest problem, was she wasn’t able to manage her time. And what we were really able to uncover is she was bending herself into a pretzel to do everything for everybody to prove her value because internally she didn’t feel valuable and she was just compromising everything she believed in so that she didn’t upset anyone, didn’t let anybody down. Everybody was happy. And of course, she wasn’t able to set boundaries. And so of course her time was completely just all over the place. She was just a hot mess, only because she was completely sacrificing herself and not honoring her own values, the things that she really prioritized, the things she was really great at, and she was trying to be what everybody, each individual person thought she should be for them.

(00:58:48):

And so just allowing her to go back to where did that start? Where did you start seeing these patterns show up and diving into those stories that she had created in her head, because it was really just a story she was telling herself that she had to show up a certain way. And when she began to see that pattern, it just was like a light bulb moment for her. And she has created boundaries. She has empowered her team, and now she’s just in what three calls now. Everything is shifting, and she has this little saying, I told Kristen this the other day, is instead of the little bracelets, what would Jesus do? She’s now, what would coach Karen say? And so that’s how she asked herself those open questions is, okay, well what would Karen ask me right now? What would Karen tell me? And that gives her permission to ask those questions. And not that I have the cue or the power, but that’s how she’s learning to trust herself is this is what I think, but what would Karen say? Yeah, she would ask me to do this. And it has just shifted so many things with her personal relationship, her relationship with her kids, her mother and her boss and her team. So it really wasn’t about time management, it was about honoring herself and giving herself those boundaries and not bending herself in a pretzel to please everyone else.

(01:00:20):

I have the biggest smile on my face because I know who that is, and I’m just like, oh, this person I know when I was talking with her, she was working 60 hours a week on top of her already 40 hour. It just was bleeding everywhere, and she came to gain back her time. But so often, and I think I’ll be curious if Dan will align with the pattern I’m seeing, but so often we come with the thing we think needs fixing and it’s very rarely the thing. And what ends up happening is when we address the root cause,

(01:01:00):

Yes, bingo,

(01:01:01):

The byproduct of the thing we were originally hoping to fix, it solves itself

(01:01:08):

In so many things.

(01:01:09):

Yes. This is why I’m like, I try to tell people, I’m like, I don’t know how else to describe what we do as holistic coaching. We treat the root cause. We stop symptomatically coaching behaviors because symptomatic management, behavioral management never lasts long term. We have to get to the root cause. And so this idea of, I can’t tell you, I think when I did a survey of what is the number one area that you struggle with the most time management and follow through productivity are always the top two. And so the fact that this one time management issue that she said, it’s time, and you were like, actually, no. It’s you bending yourself to accommodate everyone around you that has you, and that’s creeping in on your time. Just like, guys, this is, oh, it’s so juicy. Dan, let’s hear one from you. This is so good. I’m getting all fired up guys.

(01:02:03):

Yeah, so I just recently wrapped up six month engagement with an executive leader and he came to us lacking in confidence and his ability to make strong decisions in the role he in was even questioning his future with that role in that company because he didn’t feel like he was doing that well and well by the end of our engagement, it was really bittersweet, I guess is the word. I don’t know if that’s the word I’m looking for, but he walked away with so much more. So communication was one of the things that stood out at the beginning. He lacked confidence in his ability to communicate about oddly enough emotions and feelings and being able to communicate what’s really happening in a scenario. So we walked through a lot of that. The work he was doing was very stressful at the time, and we walked through why that was. So interestingly enough, the A PT, the personality

(01:03:12):

Defaults came to light very quickly and once he was able to start recognizing his default responses, then we were working on what to do when those defaults were recognized and how to navigate. So by the time we finished our engagement just a month, this last month, yeah, this last month we finished up, he was not only in a much better place himself, confident and able to communicate to where he filled out our questionnaires with way more information than where we started, but empowering his team with things like leadership resources and shifting their focus from negative scenarios consistently. I think you all talked about it a minute ago in a different format, but consistently looking at all the negatives that were occurring in the workplace and why those things were happening versus looking at it from a proactive perspective in what’s the positive outcomes here and how can we work towards that and look at how we might prevent some of these negatives from happening in the future. It was a complete shift from the time we started working together six months ago.

(01:04:27):

And Yeah, go ahead.

(01:04:29):

Go ahead.

(01:04:30):

I was just going to say I also know that his family got more of them. I know that was one of the things is his family is crazy. Thanksgiving was a blessing

(01:04:41):

That just before Thanksgiving, he did get to spend an entire time minus one leadership meeting that he did commit to before that vacation. But they did a, I’ll call it a world tour. It was just a couple states tour, but where they spent all of their time with family and he wasn’t constantly in meetings. He had learned to delegate and create boundaries and stick to them, which was super impressive.

(01:05:07):

It’s so fun because as these coaches are talking about these clients, I remember being on the call talking with this client as of this current place in our company, the calls, walking the clients through to the crossroads where they decide if they’re going to do this. And so I am there holding their doubt, holding their pain, and in a sense I put my belief on loan for them and they eventually acquire that belief themselves and their relationship with their coaches. But I get to be at the before and the crossroads and hear the pain, see the stories. I literally watch them wrestle and try to negotiate out of why now’s not the time, why this doesn’t feel like the best investment, why they’re worried or they’ve never had a coach before, why they’ve let themselves down before. And so when I get to hear these stories at the end, I just get, there’s no feeling like it.

(01:06:15):

And you guys, as coaches, I really can’t think of more fulfilling work than the work we get to do. And this is why I built Sondera and why I left a program that just focused on the business strategy because I was like, what is the point? I want to help the whole person, the whole human, because how we do one thing is how we do everything. And if you have a time management issue, I guarantee it’s something else. If you have a productivity consistency and follow through problem, I guarantee it’s something else. If you’re freezing, if you’re procrastinating and avoiding, I’m like all the things that kept coming up and I’m like, no, people don’t need more strategy and information and howtos actually, they need to be handed and taught the skills to reflect, to regulate, to ask themselves better questions, to figure out what their values are.

(01:07:02):

And so we start living in alignment with it and really getting to the core thing. And here’s the thing. I’ve been saying this, I’m like, I had a client just yesterday who was truly wrestling with investing in herself and she’s like, this is the first time I’m investing where it’s not about making more money. And she’s like, this is so hard for me to sell myself. I was like, you are your best investment. Why is a business or monetary gain more important than your mental and emotional gain? Which studies have shown the more emotionally, mentally resilient you are, the more likely you are to be successful in the workplace. But we don’t see that society doesn’t do that. And I said, welcome to the least sexy thing I’ve ever sold. I told her that. I said, I was like, I know, I understand. I was like, it’s easier to sell.

(01:07:47):

You make more money. It’s pretty darn hard to sell. You live a more fulfilling life according to your values and get to the root cause of all the things that are frustrating you so that you can have more success. It’s a longer sell, but it’s work. I believe in more because the dividends pay much longer if it takes the on-ramp to sell themselves on why they’re worth it. Because especially with women, self-worth comes up all the time. They’re like, I can’t spend this on myself. My children need shoes and programs and these things and all that. And I, especially if they’ve been living their life to appease others, this feels like such a selfish investment, but it’s not because the return on investment pays dividends. I say this, I’m like this pays in dividends over the rest of your life. And not just dividends in yourself, but your spouse, your children, your coworkers, the ripple effect is massive. And so you guys have been talking about blind spots and who Sondera is. We’re not here to rescue you. We are here to partner with you.

(01:08:55):

We are a mirror, we hold up a mirror and we hold a lot of compassion while you look in the mirror and see yourself in its full honesty and being like, okay, this is where I am and this is where I want to go. And here’s my patterns. And I mentioned this in a training I did a while back and we’ll wrap with this, but Pixar has something called a brain trust. And the reason why they established a brain trust was actually they knew that oftentimes, and I don’t know how many people know this, but I have the book, I think it’s called Creativity Inc. By Ed Kamel. And he was the creative director. He was a big head honcho in Pixar. And Toy Story two almost broke Pixar. And one of the things that they realized that they needed was a brain trust. And the brain trust functions because the director takes on the role of the film and the brain trust is outside of the director and the brain trust essentially.

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They know that the director gets lost in their own creative process and they’re there to protect the story. They believe the story is the most important, is the thing to protect. And so they know that they get lost, that the directors get lost in their own narrative. And so the directors bring the work to the brain trust and the brain trust. They say it is never about the director. It is always about the story. And they always do it to protect the story because it gets lost. And I like to think of our coaches as your brain trust. They’re there. We are too close to the story to see the real narrative. And they’re not there to shame you. They’re there to say, Hey, we’re getting lost in the creative process. We’ve lost sight here. So we’re going to zoom out. This isn’t about you being a poor director and not knowing what you’re doing.

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This is about me coming alongside of you and protecting the most important thing, which is the story you are writing in your life. And so I always see Sondera is the brain trust that comes alongside you and protects the most important thing you have in your life, which is the story you are writing about your life. And so I always say we have clients in all ages all the way up until late seventies, way past retirement being like, I don’t know what I’m doing now. It is never too late to change. You’re never past these tools. And so friends, if this is something that has you, and I just wanted say thank you coaches for being on sharing your stories, you guys had such amazing things to say, thank you for being on. And so as you were listening to this, if you’re like, you know what?

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Maybe it is time. Maybe I am tired of repeating my stories and I’m ready to understand myself through the lens of compassion and curiosity and I want to write a different story and I want to have the tools and the support in place with a trusted advisor who’s trained to help me in these things, I want to encourage you, we have a link in our show notes and you can book a breakthrough call with us. And on that call, we help you kind of see how your patterns are riding your current life and we help you explore if working with a Sera coach is the next right step for you. It may not be, and we’ll tell you and maybe our membership is a better place to start, but if you are feeling that little inkling as you are, like, gosh, maybe this is what I need, I want to just encourage you to book that call, it’s free to you.

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It’ll be, at the very least, I always say these calls are high value because it’s an opportunity. Your patterns will even show up in this conversation. And it’s an opportunity to see how your pattern shows up when you’re talking about investing in yourself and in your life and in your future, and you are always worth it. So friends, thank you so much for being on today. We hope you enjoy this episode and if you know someone who could benefit from it, give a share, leave a review and we will catch you guys in the next episode.