Jeanine Bailey and Marie Quigley

Co-founders of Empower World

Jeanine: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Empower World Coaching and Leadership podcast today it's just me, Jeanine Bailey without Marie. Marie Quigley, however, I am Re-sharing, a podcast that we both recorded with Your Onions, Stefan Lindbergh Jones, who is the director and founder of Ginger Camel. And so, Your Onion podcast is part of the Ginger Camel Group of services and products. And so, we're very fortunate to do this podcast with Stefan, who is a long-term friend of mine. And we've also both got to know Stefan very well through our various businesses. And also, Stefan has recently joined our coach training program and completed earlier this year. So, he's got a much better insight into what we do as coaches, having become a coach in training himself. This is in May 2021. So actually, sorry, April, I'm ahead of myself. So, we trust that you'll enjoy this episode of Your Onion, the podcast. And Stefan is interviewing us to support people to understand how we created the success of Empower World. So, it includes the insights and sharing of what has worked well, where we've fallen over and scuffed our knees, where we haven't done so well, and all the things that we believe has really created the success of Empower World today. So, we trust that you'll find it useful, valuable, insightful. And of course, we always love to hear your feedback. So, enjoy. And once again, thank you, Stefan, for making this happen. And we wish you every success as you deserve, knowing what a great job that you're doing. Thank you, Stefan.

Stefan: So, ladies, I'm just curious, when you when you joined forces, did you have an overall vision, an overall goal when you created Empower World? And if you did, did you have? Because in the coaching world, you can't just jump to the end goal. You've got to take small steps. So, did you know the kind of steps that you're going to take or was it kind of feeling your way through it?

Jeanine: That's a great, great question, Stefan. And there's a few actually, there's a few questions I heard there.

Stefan: Absolutely, as always.

Jeanine: So, when we first got together, really our vision was that we like each other, we share similar values and we've got this similar passion and we spoke the same language. And of course, there are differences, but we felt very aligned. And we also had our own businesses, our own separate businesses, our own coaching practices. But we knew we wanted to work together. So initially when we got together, it was about creating a coach training program or school or something along those lines. We were both passionate about being able to pass on these skills of coaching to others. And so that was the first thing that we had in our minds because we both had very healthy, successful individual practices. So, yes when we first came together, it was, we felt it was a big vision, but it was a small vision of what Empower World is today. And of course, that that vision that it keeps, it keeps growing. It keeps expanding. It's very different from when we first got together and created Empower World. And I know Marie will definitely want to add to what I've shared here about our vision.

Marie: Thanks, Jeanine. We sat together over a cup of coffee in Villaggio mall in Paul’s Café, and we spoke about what our dreams were, what we want to think about, as Jeanine said, we had this vision of making it accessible for people in the Middle East that they didn't have to go out of their region to find great training. And we believed, we did believe in ourselves that we could combine the two learnings and many learnings that we've had from our trainings to make one great training. Now, it wasn't the best training when we first delivered it. It was a smaller version of what we have now. And so, what we did was we knew we had a vision. We could see it as a school, but we weren't sure, to be honest, what the steps were. We just were in the moment and we said, let's try this. And we tried it. And then we both got together after the first delivery and we said, OK, this is… something needs shifting here. And we kept evolving the training and redesigning it and rewriting it. And with the rewriting, then came the opening up of our vision a little bit more. So, we never had a business plan, but we did have a dream. Five or six years, I think that we both had our own practices.

Jeanine: Yeah, something like that. Maybe four years.

Marie: Yeah, originally there was some hesitation because we were we had our babies, our own businesses. How would this work be coming together? There was, I had lots of questions. You know, I love freedom. Freedom. It was my top value. Was this going to stop my freedom working with another human being? How would we work together? We know we liked each other, but could we work together as business partners? That was another question. And there was some going back and forth to remember Jeanine designing, I suppose, creating our ways of working together to understand how it would work and also what happens if it doesn't work, because we knew so many women who had built businesses together. And it didn’t work in the end and ended up in a in a not-so-great place for them. And we were preempting some of those thoughts about, OK, so if it doesn't work, how are we going to end it? What is it going to look like if we want to separate? So right at the beginning, we were thinking about the obstacles that may not support us to be successful together so we could all lay out on the table. We didn't intend to not make it work. We were practical in our thinking about it. Does that make sense?

Stefan: Absolutely.

Jeanine: And I think the important thing here was that we kept talking. We kept working through whatever came up, because absolutely, when you're setting up a business and it's evolving and changing and, you know, we're getting feedback as to what's working well and perhaps what's not working so well, you know, there's always going to be differences. And again, I go back to that metaphor of creating a diamond or pearl. There's a lot of rubbing that needs to take place to make that happen. So, what I think was really key with Marie and I, was what has created our success has been the ability to be honest and transparent and open and vulnerable as well with each other, to be able to have emotional conversations with the intention of working through it, to look at, OK, what can we do with this? And yes, it could have meant that we decide to end, but we haven't. And we've, I believe we've continued to just grow and expand in a wonderful way and it continues to become richer, the partnership. So, yeah, I'm feeling very blessed as I speak about this right now. So, to have that relationship, Marie is a huge part of my life, as I'm sure I am in hers, because we are constantly, in communication. So, I think one of the keys for a successful business is creating a partnership that has the ability to communicate and build a relationship with one another that really is respectful, acknowledges, knows that there are differing opinions and all those sorts of things to be able to come through the challenges because there will be challenges. There's no doubt about that. When creating something.

Stefan: Absolutely. I'm just I'm just curious. Before you guys met, had you had contact with each other before? Had you worked together before?

Jeanine: Well, I, so, this is back in Doha. And I was very fortunate and I and I guess the story goes into supporting people as to how to create a business. When I first got into coaching, there was a lot of networking that I did. And as a consequence of that networking, I got involved in a conference. I was asked to support a conference and it was about supporting women and work. It attracted a number of corporate clients. And as a consequence of that work that I did, I was approached by Ooredoo and they wanted me to coach forty-five executives. And so, I needed help. And so that's where I came across Marie because I found her on wonderful LinkedIn and this magnificent coach was here in Doha, never met her, but we met. And I absolutely knew from, really from the beginning that Marie would be a great person to bring on board with this project. So that's how we first met through that piece of work that was offered. And so that started that connection, that relationship.

Marie: Yeah. And even before that Stefan, I think this is important for anybody who's thinking of creating a business, that networking that Jeanine mentioned. So, I was actually moving from to Dubai to Doha. So, I was making connections on LinkedIn, on other networking events, on other communities before I even set foot in Doha, because I didn't know what the ground would look like when I arrived. I had no idea what the expectations of working as a coach would be in Doha. So, we're always even in our business and we're always looking ahead at how we can connect with the right people, and that's what I did from my own business, I was looking ahead. So, I remember clicking on Jeanine because there were very few ICF accredited coaches in Doha she was one of them, one of the very few. And that connection allowed us then to meet when we got there, because you've got to be brave in in these things. When you want something, you've got to reach out to the people who are in your community that might be, for want of a better word, useful for your growth and also someone that you could feedback to. So, I think there's always a back story to how people have connected isn't there. And that's our aback story.

Jeanine: I think that's really important. And you know that potentially, even when people go out there to these networking events or to events, perhaps a training that you just never know who you're going to meet and to be really to keep your mind open to. Yeah, you might meet someone and think, you know, that's not going to lead anywhere. But it's amazing how many times I've noticed that when I've had a great connection conversation, not believing it's going to perhaps go up anywhere or not intending for it to go anywhere, how it can come back in a way that, you know, years later people can come back to us. I've noticed for myself and I know that would be the same for you Marie that I'm sure for you, Stefan, that people come back years later saying, I've got this opportunity or I'm looking for a coach or whatever it may be. So, I think it's about just keeping eyes and heart and mind open to just trusting that whatever connections you make could lead to something amazing.

Marie: And Stefan, we partnered together on that corporate project and we were having these talks together, but we were also educating companies for free. We were doing events for free, sharing our knowledge and experience and getting ourselves known so that we could test the market, I suppose, to see what the interest was like in our work as coaches, in our work as trainers and facilitators and how we were being accepted in the community. So, there's a lot of groundwork that happens to build up your reputation.

Jeanine: I would say that actually then we weren't perhaps looking at it, at the school. I think that was, it was such an early stage and really the focus was on this this major project. And I think it was through working together on this project that we knew we wanted to work together.

Stefan: Sorry, Jeanine. So, Empower World was the initial let's set up a company together. And then the idea of the school came later was.

Marie: No. Empower World came after the project that we did together. And Empower World with setting up easy, accessible Coach Training for people. But we didn't know it would grow into a movement, a school, a community we had we didn't know that would happen. We thought we might do some trainings and support people, but we didn't realize how big it would, our vision could go.

Stefan: So, give us an idea in the time frame then from you guys sitting at the table to other key years where things developed for you guys that stand out?

Jeanine: Well, I would say it was pretty quick after working on the corporate executive coaching program that we decided that we wanted to set up the Coach Training. And once we decided that, we moved pretty quickly because we knew what we needed to do to make it happen. We had a network. We had a great network of men and women, mostly women. But there were some men that really wanted to do it very quickly. So, and then I guess from there, I mean, it seems like a while ago now. But then from there it just we loved it. We were passionate about it. And we were doing ILM Accredited training back then. And then we had the great idea, why don't we run ICF? We're both ICF credentialed coaches, international coach, federation credentialed coaches. So, it just kind of grew from there. And as a consequence of people doing our programs that were often professional people working in organizations, these people would then come back to us and ask us for either coaching. It could have been private coaching, but also executive coaching. And could you run some retreats or workshops or perhaps Coach Training in our organization? So, our own individual businesses started to they started we started to let them go and really focus on Empower World knowing that, yes, we'd still attract individual clients. And together we would be working on these coach training programs, which have been developed into mentoring programs, advanced Coach Training. But we just managed to I mean, half of I'd say half of our business was corporate based, working with organizations versus the other half focused on Coach Training. So, it just evolved naturally, easily.

Marie: It did. And the defining moment for me was changing from ILM to ICF. Yes, that was really a defining moment because I know I wouldn't have been satisfied just facilitating what we could in that program. And no disrespect to anyone who's done ILM. We wanted to create something really deep and transformational and that included working with emotions and values and purpose and that kind of ooby dooby stuff that a lot of the workplace coaching might not involve. So that deep transformational move for us, I think that was a defining moment in Empower World’s spread and also, when people experience that, that's when they talked about it.

Stefan: I love it when you say that ooby dooby. You said at various times since I've known you and you always go that ooby dooby stuff. It's just like, is it really still ooby dooby ?

Marie: Yeah, I hope not. And maybe to some people it still is. I think the way we talk when you experience it, it's not because it's so real. But if you don't experience it, it might sound a bit unusual.

Jeanine: And I would say also the ooby dooby stuff, the fuzzy stuff that we talk about, there's actually a science behind it as well. So, we've both done the training in the neuroscience of coaching. So, there's a real there's… behind everything that we share that sounds obby dooby and fluffy. There is a science behind it. We've learned that. So, it's great to be able to share that both in the corporate setting and in our own programs. And as Marie has shared, you know, it's about experiencing it so that what we aim to do. We aim to keep all the participants a taste of going deep, looking at their emotions, which we say is our compass to our decisions. If we're off track, we won't feel so great. If we're on track, we're going to feel fantastic. So, it's really turning into those elements of ourselves that can let us know again. Are we on the path that is truly ours or are we on someone else's path?

Marie: And I think a lot of people call these, somebodies in the background. Lovely. People call these skills soft skills. But actually, the soft skills are often the hardest to move into. But they're the most Empowering skills. And I think that's important as business owners, as business partners together, Jeanine and I faced the hard emotions that we were both experiencing as we were growing together and building this partnership. It's like a marriage, right? You grow any partnership has growing pains.

Stefan: Absolutely.

Marie: What we were brave enough to do was stay with the growing pains and lean in rather than move away. And I think that is a strength for us.

Stefan: Superb. I'm just curious, as you were growing, how did you attract people on board the community, followers? What were the techniques, that you use?

Marie: Well, lots of networking, lots of free events. We held community events so that people could join to get an experience. Of course, we had the social media sharing but that came later. It was really more about connecting and having conversations. It could have been individual; it could have been group. It could have just been sitting in a coffee shop and reaching out to a group of people and sharing what we did. So, we were always trying to share something that was valuable to someone else.

Jeanine: Yeah, I can't add much more than what you shared there Marie. I think that the networking was definitely important in those early days and giving people an experience, giving them a taste of what it was like to experience coaching. And as a consequence of that and in Doha, it's a small community, really. It's amazing how small it is, although it's probably going to, although maybe it's not getting bigger with Covid-19. But and then it got to a point where we were so, so busy with our programs and running our programs that we just we just ran out of space to be able to do the networking. And I think it got to the point where our name was out there. It was out there. So, and again, we never did any business development for the corporate side of our work. It really was all through word of mouth. So now it took time, of course, to get that reputation. It took focus and energy and really commitment to sharing our, you know, what we're passionate about. But it absolutely paid off for us. It did pay off for us. So, we're and we're very grateful for that. And we've worked with some amazing organisations as a consequence.

Stefan: And have you seen a change in mindset from people now that they're more aware of coaching? But you don't really have to explain it as much or are you still?

Marie: That's a good question. So, I think there's two questions in that, Stefan. So, I think the way the world has changed in the last 12 months has allowed people to readdress what they want out of life. So, the reflection questions are all happening more with people. People are wondering what is this all about? So, we've noticed a wider expansion of our community into different countries that have found us. And I still think there is a lack of understanding of what coaching is. There are still many people who aren't trained, who are calling themselves coaches and are doing everything but coaching. So, it is an interesting balance that's happening in the world of coaching, I think.

Jeanine: Yeah, I think it's really still very much in its infancy. And there's still a huge opportunity for coaching to grow and develop and become part of the culture, become normal in many respects, in so many different industries and from a young age through school, up through all the levels of learning. So. Unless we always say, unless you've experienced coaching with a professional coach or done coach training, it's hard to know what coaching is. It really is. People and people will often make the same error of judgment about what coaching is that it's about advice. It's about telling people what to do. It's potentially rah inspiring. And, of course, it’s none of that. So, yeah.

Stefan: And how do you OK, you're running a successful business. How do you keep that success? How do you keep going and keep fresh and keep on top of all the latest coaching techniques?

Marie: That's such a great question. So, for a number of years, we wore many hats. We wore Editor, we wore coach we wore marketer we were like overloaded with doing the work ourselves. So small businesses get to a tipping point. And we were at a tipping point. We're taking deep breaths, thinking, how do we find the time to even fit any more work in? And that's when we had to take the leap to invest in hiring somebody else. And that first person didn't work out very well. We were perhaps a little bit too kind in the way we dealt with that person because we really wanted them to be successful with us. But they weren't aligned with our values, they weren't aligned with our mission. And we had to take the decision to let them go with the belief that they were going on to better things than it would allow a door to open for us. So, then we met our amazing business manager, Arslan Athar, who you have met Stefan, and anybody in the world of Empower World will know. And that allowed us the freedom to step back and re-evaluate. So, we're constantly looking at innovating. Innovative ways to include our program, expand our program, different ways that we can bring everything we learn, we believe we have a duty to share with our community. So, if we learn something. We think, how can we share it? We do alumni events, complementary sessions, taster sessions, as well as our paid training. There's lots of things we like to offer so that our community are growing as we're growing.

Jeanine: And if I can add here too, we actually hired Tracey Livingston, who is based in the US and yeah, she's a pocket dynamo. And so, she brought some fresh perspectives about how we could communicate and market. And we also hired an agency based here in Australia. They I mean, and they just set us up in terms of our social media, because we were doing it, as Marie said, we were doing it. We're doing it all. Thinking we were doing it OK. But actually, we didn't realize there’s all the stuff behind Facebook that does all this magical stuff when you set it up correctly. So, with that with getting that set up properly in terms of the background and again, with Tracy bringing in these new perspectives and eventually she decided to also become a coach herself. And so, Arslan, taking over and driving the behind the scenes for us, it definitely opened up new doors for us and enabled us to let go of things and to be able to focus on what's most important, which we believe is, of course, delivering what we do, coaching, training, and also focusing on the message that we send out because we felt we have experimented in different ways as well to potentially give someone else the opportunity to run on our behalf. But it didn't feel like us. So, we also felt that and that's, I guess, something that I've been learning through the things that I've done marketing wise is you've got to keep your voice not to farm it out to someone else who will put their voice on it and won't be ours. So, I guess we've both done some, we've dabbled in marketing courses and sales courses and things like that, which has been helpful because we're kind of aware of what we need and what we need in people that we bring on board as well. And then, of course, with our coaching skills Marie and I are always, looking at ways of supporting the craft that we do. So, we're constantly upskilling our craft. We're not resting on our laurels, so to speak, if that's the right term, we do believe that mastery is a never-ending journey. And so, we do ensure that we continue to learn and expand and support each other to do that as well. So.

Marie: Yeah, I could add just a little bit onto that. So, hiring Tracey was a defining moment for us when we used our skills to hire her to get the right person. And I think this is important for our business is we listened to people who knew better than we did. You're one of them, Stefan. When we started podcasting, we didn't have a clue. You invited us to learn the skills of podcasting. We learnt from you. We learnt from Tracey. We learnt from other people. We learned certainly learnt from Arslan and other people that we've hired. And there's a trust as we've built our relationships, that they're on the same page as us. And Jeanine mentioned Tracey moved on. That was fantastic for her. So, we have a belief that when the people come and go, it's all right. There is a life expectancy with everybody. We all want to grow and move on so those philosophies of coaching are always behind our business.

Jeanine: I feel the Ginger Camel podcast was a defining moment for us as well. I really believe it gave us this feeling like, wow, we've made it and we have an important message to share. And it was yeah, it was a beautiful gift that you gave us to be a part of that and to again, as Marie said, learn so that we could then go on and fly. So, thank you for that gift.

Marie: Stefan. We set our intention to have a radio show. So that is part of our business planning, setting intentions and putting it out that we set this intention. Then you offered the podcast. And yes, it was a beautiful part of expansion for us.

Stefan: And how are your numbers.

Marie: You’d have to ask Arslan! That's a lovely story. So, I lived in a three-story house in Doha at the time and we would take there was no furniture in it. We would take my ironing board upstairs and we would record in this room the two of us together. I think one of one of the lovely things about both of us is that we say yes to things even if we don't know how to do it. We work out way and we're not afraid of failing. And maybe the sound quality isn't the best and maybe our voices are heard equally. And that's OK. We'll get out there somehow.

Stefan: Absolutely. You got out there whether the quality was good or not absolutely. I remember listening to sometimes I go, oh, God, where did they record that? On the ironing board. I've got this image now of you two sitting around an ironing board classic. I'm just curious. When you set up Empower world and you were doing a coach training, was there any other coach training you mentioned when you first started there? Well, that's the reason why you kind of set it up in Doha initially. Now, when you look back, are there more?

Marie: I believe there was another fabulous gentleman. Jeanine you might remember his name. His company was called Intellect, and he was in Doha at the same time as us. And we met him and we had coffee with him. And it was lovely to have another connection with somebody who had a vision like ours. And our schools were different and our target market was different. Right then there were only the two of us. And the reason we wanted it was so that people didn't leave that had to leave their homes.

Jeanine: They might actually be another two schools. There was Ahmed and Intellect. And I think that their focus was on Arabic speakers. So, the other two. Yes, I don't know what's happened with them. I don't know where they got to. I've never heard their names apart from when I first started looking at because the school was a vision that I had when I first started training as a coach because I had to go to Australia to do my coach training. And it was while I was in the in the training at Melbourne, I thought. I want to set up a school and so I knew that there were these other two places, but I never really heard about them once we set up Marie, once we started to fly.

Stefan: But now is there more? And, here's a double ended question, so basically one is there more but also now that you've seen with Covid-19 is that you've done your training online. Now we're not limited to where we are, literally, for a student, the world's our oyster, but also as a school, the world’s your oyster, so you can attract anyone from around the world? So, has that given you a shift change in a different mindset in the way you kind of advertise yourself? So, it sounds.

Marie: It has. So Covid-19 was another defining moment in our business. We always seem to be a little bit ahead of the game in our heads and hearts. So, we had decided we were going to test out online training, but we were pushing it back because we love the in-person as much as anybody else. And it's interesting Stefan the renowned coaching schools, really did a lot of in person work. So, the online programs, often I'm not I'm generalizing here, but sometimes were a day's course or a weekend course. And the as far as I understand, there weren’t so many robust trainings that really would offer the same as an in-person experience. So Covid-19 came and we were able to move very quickly and change. And with the we were in the midst of live training when Covid-19 happened. So, all participants in the live training in the Hilton Hotel, well, actually, it was the W hotel they agreed to test out with us and we promised them their money back if they didn't get what they wanted and the feedback was they got more than they wanted. So that again allowed us to say yes to expanding. And yes, our marketing has expanded now to other countries. The last training, we had people from New Zealand, from Belgium, from the UK. This time, again, we've got more expansion with Poland and Germany and Saudi Arabia.

Jeanine:  and Australia.

Stefan: That must be fantastic to see the diversity that comes through your door. But I've lost my train of thought now. I was going somewhere and in a completely carry on talking to you have. No, but has that been a huge learning curve for you guys, because suddenly you're doing it? Oh, no, I know where I was going to go. All right, let me stop myself and I'll carry on with that afterwards. But do you think people would be more attracted to the coach training now that it is virtual than it is online rather than going to a location and doing it in person? Do you think the arms have pulled in different types of people?

Marie: I think potentially. Well, yes, it has. The answer is yes, it has. It is different to in person training. There's no doubt about it. So, there are pros and cons to both of those. It's allowing people who may not have had the ability to go to the training to do it now. I think that's the biggest shift.

Jeanine: I think that’s true and I think there'll be some people who will wait for the in-house experience again. Yeah, we're made up of all sorts of different energies and desires and wants and but Covid-19 has certainly, yeah, I believe, opened up for much more people wanting to be willing to go online. But I still here I'd like to wait till the face-to-face experience comes back, so.

Marie: I'm didn’t want to put the programme online. Before Covid-19 I was like, oh, and Covid-19 stretched out of our comfort zone. And so, again, we said yes, even though we didn't know how it would turn out, it was an experiment.

Stefan: Well, how was that? That was going to be my next question. How was that stretch for the two of you and coming from Podcast's and then now having to do video presentations. How was that?

Marie: Well, we’re not techies, you know that we’re not technical minded and we have to let we have to learn a skill, we have to learn to work out. We've done Zoom meetings for many years.

Jeanine: I was going to say it wasn't a huge stretch, Stefan, because we had been doing Zoom. We've been doing Zoom online mentoring programs for many years. So, in many ways it wasn't a huge stretch, but the stretch I guess, was the enhancements to zoom with breakout rooms and things like that. So that was a stretch. But and yes, it was a bit? but we quickly, adapted. And I think just having that experience of already using Zoom for a lot of business meetings, again for many years, and our mentoring, I'm sorry for laughing, just seeing people coming from his background. And I guess it was a little bit of a stretch, but not huge. So, it's a look it still is a bit of a stretch to use Zoom. So certainly, for me, when I'm looking at breakout rooms, gam board, deejaying, you know, all of those, all of it and looking at where are we in outrun sheet. Yeah, it's a bit of struggle but durable. Absolutely.

Stefan: Actually, I'm just curious, you know, when you do your video presentations where you've got you two side by side and you're talking about a different topic or a certain topic, have you got it scripted? Do you want your ad libbing? Yeah, well, you got like key sentences or how does it work?

Marie: We've been doing this training for so long now we're following each other. What's Jeanine said? What else needs to be said here? So, yeah, it's just us.

Stefan: Because I'm always watching you, I'm looking at the eyes just to see if, you know, there's a little side glance or anything like that just to see where you are.

Jeanine: Certainly, those videos that you are talking about, Stefan, we really don't even plan. We just do whenever we can.

Stefan: So is there any do you kind of is there any kind of routine that you guys set yourself up just before you go recording psych yourself up or you just go. Right, let's go for it.

Marie: We do have a we have a bit of a smile and a laugh. We there's lots of outtakes of us laughing. Well.

Stefan: That's what should be on the on your website. And it should be an outtake video.

Marie: We've thought about that. We just haven't round to collate it. But yes, we will say, well, let's start again. But we try to not do that because we don't have the capacity to keep editing. Yes. Having a connection to each other. We always set an intention the same with any kind of training we do. We say, what do you want for the participants? What do you want for yourself? We do that when we come together thinking about what's the intention for this? How do they want to how do we want people to receive us so we get into that state? It's a choice. We always know it's a choice how we are received.

Jeanine: And I guess where we're really thinking of the audience and what will the audience appreciate? What will they respond best to in terms of energy, in terms of what we share? So, we've always got that in mind.

Stefan: Very good. All right. As we're coming to the end, I just want to have your kind of last word on if someone is thinking of. Starting their own coaching business, what advice would you give them.

Marie:  Get trained, because it does make a difference if you're thinking of starting a business, become the best coach you can be, because that is what will build your practice. I do think you've got to be willing to take risks. You've got to be willing to be courageous, which means being vulnerable, which means making mistakes and then picking yourself up and learning from those mistakes. So, if you're somebody who isn't willing to try out new things, that could be a challenge for you. And even if you're scared, do it, test it out and see what that that feels like for you.

Jeanine: Yeah. I really couldn't add much more to that. I think you summed it up perfectly. And I believe you and I, we do want to provide a quality experience. We do want to provide a quality service product, whatever you may call it. So that potentially is a part of us both that really wants to make it as perfect as it can be. And we know that if we really hang around and procrastinate on those things, we wouldn't get out there. And so, it is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. It is. And I know certainly when I started. Yeah, I, I used to have brain jams. If I spoke publicly, not, in my coaching world, but certainly in other industries where I would have to get up and speak. And so, when I started out as a coach and started to get up in front of people and speak in front of people, that old memory would be lingering. So, I really had to feel the fear and do it anyway as a new coach. And I will still feel the fear pretty much every time I am training. But I know that when I step into it and I, I just go into the flow and trust what's coming up and still yet make mistakes. And so, it is about understanding and appreciate that will happen and kind of growing a bit of a thicker skin to go. OK, what can I learn from that. What can I. What can I learn from this that will support me going forward versus holding self-back and not giving gifts to the world, so to speak? So, it is a way we can really appreciate new coaches being fearful about starting out, but it is really embracing that and going for it, knowing that you are bringing a wonderful gift to the world that is going to support others to step into their greatness. So, it's I guess, holding the intention of your purpose, values, dreams, vision, holding that close in your heart. And knowing that when you take those steps out of the comfort zone, you really are doing wonderful things for the world, even if you scuff your knees and make mistakes, it's going to support you to continue to grow because certainly I've made a lot a lot of mistakes. And certainly, I have cringe moments and think look back at some of the things I've done. Nothing. Oh. And I also look at what we've created together and think, wow, you've done something wonderful.

Stefan: Absolutely. When I you know, when I've been sitting here talking to you guys, I've seen you from when you first started to where you are now and you're completely different people to where you are now. Very much mature, very self-centered, not self-centered. That's the wrong word, but very secure in yourselves. You know how to present yourselves. There's been a lot of years and a lot of practice, et cetera, to know your craft and how you present it, etc. compared to when you first started. And I applaud you both for what you have achieved and what you will achieve in the future. So, thank you from me and from the rest of the coaches that have gone through your training programs.

Marie: Thank you, Stefan. That's lovely to hear that. And so lovely that you've noticed that. I think as you're growing, you don't notice the growth, but when somebody watching it, you can see so much more.

Stefan: Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a great podcast. I hope this will be of some benefit to people that are listening and watching and. Yes. Thank you.

Jeanine: Thank you for your beautiful questions and giving us a voice.

Stefan: Always, always give you a voice.

Jeanine: We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Coaching and Leadership podcast, with the permission of Stefan and Your Onion, the podcast. We are so grateful to Stefan for doing this with us. It truly has been a delightful journey. And we know Stefan is going to be creating amazing ripples in the world with the amazing skills he is really taking on board and creating something special himself. So, thank you

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