166: How to Get the Most Out of Coaching

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Hey everyone, welcome to a new episode. So I recorded this last week, in terms of when this podcast comes out. At least I think it will, sometimes the schedule changes last minute. And so I am recording this during the crazy wildfire smoke that you may have heard of in the news. I live in northern New Jersey, and so I had the pleasure and privilege of the smoke coming down here the past few days.

And it has been crazy. Like the sky at times has been super orange hazy. You can actually see it, and so a lot of outdoor events have been canceled. Specifically kids aren’t playing outside, any outdoor field trips are being canceled, our pool is closed for a few days. I mean basically it’s not safe to be outside. And I have been learning all about particulate size, things like PM and what they mean and why they’re bad, et cetera. Things that I knew existed, but I didn’t really have to think about it.

Although, where I live I’m really, really close to the George Washington Bridge, and so there’s often a lot of congestion with cars and so I’m pretty sure the air quality where I live isn’t that great. And honestly, for the last two years we’ve had some really good air purifiers. The brand we have is Blueair. And I think we initially got them because Matt has allergies and we were hoping they would get better with that and also we just felt like, hey, clean air can’t be a bad thing, right?

But from what I’ve read on Google, Blueair is actually pretty good. And I’m pretty sure I did some research before I bought them, they were highly recommended by a bunch of websites. And of course I re-Googled it during the wildfires to see if they’re actually good for smoke because I’ve just been reading about the particulate matter size of wildfire.

And obviously it varies depending on what’s going on and, I don’t know, the gasses and emissions. It’s a bit more complicated than I looked into. But apparently Blueair actually filters that stuff out. And so for those of you listening who are or have been in an affected area, consider getting an air purifier if you don’t.

I had a friend who has a very large house and he was like, “How am I supposed to purify this whole house?” I don’t know, I think you can install some kind of HVAC thing. I think a lot of schools really rehauled their sort of air purifying capabilities because of Covid, and so obviously the technology is there. But what I told him is like maybe get one for at least the bedrooms, right? And he has kids.

So that’s what is going on with that. And our purifiers are always on, but we’ve been running them on high and sort of moving them so that they really get to the areas that we’re in. Like my office is pretty small and so I actually don’t have one for my office, but I’ve just been moving one of the ones from, actually, Jack’s bedroom into my office during the day to help.

And I’ve been having a lot of symptoms and I thought I was coming down with a cold, but I’m thinking it’s actually because of the smoke. I’ve been congested, I have a bit of a sore throat. My eyes are always kind of burning though because I have pretty, pretty dry eyes. I know you’re learning a lot about me that you probably don’t need to know, but that’s what’s been going on.

Now, I also want to say that we only have a few spots for the 2024 Money and Wellness Conference for Women Physicians. And so, of course, I would love to see you and hang out with you in real life. And so if you’ve been thinking about it, make sure you go to my website, wealthymommd.com, and you’ll see up top a link to find out more about the conference and to register.

Okay, so today I wanted to talk about something that I’ve been meaning to talk about on the podcast, and this is going to be pretty short. But basically, I want to talk about how to get the best out of working with a coach, whether it’s with me or something else, and also if you take standalone online courses. And this is wisdom that I’ve learned for myself over the years having been coached a lot, sometimes multiple coaches at the same time.

And if it’s not obvious, one works with a coach to help with your personal growth, your business growth and basically how to get to the next level in whatever you’re working on, okay? And then I want to talk about what not to do and some caveats.

Okay, so I think when you hire a coach it’s really, really important before you start working with them to really think about what is the outcome that you want? And I want you to think of outcomes two ways. One is like where are you going to be at the end of the time with the coach? So whether it’s a one on one coach where usually it’s a finite amount of time, typically three or six months or even a year sometimes. And maybe an online course where you have three months.

And even with lifetime membership programs, like Live Wealthy, I think it’s still really important to think about this. What is the outcome that you want? And then, when do you want to have it by? Because you may not get the goal result at the end of the time that the package is over, right? And so I think it’s really important to think about that, write down a few goals.

This is something that I do with my one on one clients, so it keeps us focused. Because oftentimes we end up coaching on other things, which is normal and I think should happen because coaching doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Meaning your life isn’t compartmentalized, right? And so getting coached in one area inevitably spills and helps other areas of your life because you may have heard the phrase, how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Okay, so what I want to do is talk about what your role is versus the coach’s because at the end of the day, a coach by themselves is not going to automatically create transformation for you. It is a co-lead relationship, okay? What I mean by that is you have to do the work. You have to show up, right? A coach is not going to magically by osmosis give you the results that you want.

Now, that doesn’t mean there are bad programs or bad coaches out there. That’s not what I mean, but I think it’s important to go into the coaching relationship knowing that you have to show up and co-lead as much as your coach as well. And your coach’s job is to show up, be present, listen and come with all of their coaching tools. And different coaches have different coaching tools, right?

And one thing I want to say is that your coach is not a guru, they’re not God, so to speak, and they do not know what’s best for you. I think this is really, really important to listen to and really think about because I have learned this lesson sometimes painfully. Meaning I have sort of outsourced a lot of what really is my responsibility to them. Outsourced or kind of put the burden on them, if that makes sense.

And so what does that mean for you? What should you do? So I think this is where it’s really, really important to work on developing and trusting and listening to what people call either your inner compass, your intuition, your inner knowing. And this requires work on your part to work on your self-trust and your ability to trust yourself, right?

And the reason why this is so important is because you never want to be sort of led off track and stop listening to yourself and stop thinking you don’t know what’s best for you. Because ultimately, a coach might be opinionated, they might give you advice. That doesn’t mean that’s what’s best for you. And that’s something that I really try to iterate to my clients, is like whatever I say, does not mean you should do it.

It’s not that I’m not an expert in certain things. But I really want my clients to think about whether they should do it or not. And just because I recommend something doesn’t mean that they should do it, okay? But here’s what I recommend, when they do say something, give advice or et cetera, I think it’s really important, whether or not you do it, is why are they recommending things, right?

And for something like a business coach, it’s usually because they’ve been where you are and so they have insight and perspective that you may not have. So I think it’s really important to think about why are they saying this? And if you don’t know, just ask your coach, right? What have they seen? Because I think that’s where the real wisdom is.

And so our jobs as clients is to show up, do the work and the thing is, part of the reason you hired them is to do the work that you haven’t been able to do on your own or have been putting off, right? A lot of times what I, I mean, I can’t give a percentage but let’s say 80 or 90% of the time it’s basically telling yourself and committing to working on this topic.

Does that make sense? Because when you’re paying someone and working with them, you’re basically saying this is important to me and I really want to work on this now. When you pay, you pay attention, right? For example, I started working with the parent coach because focusing on my relationship with my child, it’s important to all mom’s obviously.

But I really wanted to work on certain aspects and so I decided to hire someone who obviously knew things that I didn’t know and had perspective and knowledge that I wouldn’t have or would have taken me a long time to put together. And also, since I meet with her every week, it really reminds me that I need to work on this, okay?

And then obviously, if you hire someone like a business coach or a money coach, same sort of thing, right? What that means is, you’re saying, hey, I’m going to work on this. And what I have found with my clients is, obviously it’s on money, everyone knows that money is important, right? And of course you could figure things out.

But a lot of times what I found with most of my clients is they get stressed and overwhelmed when they think about working on it. Or they might even try, meaning like, hey, I’m going to look at my spending. But then they stopped because it doesn’t feel good, it feels maybe scary, et cetera.

And so if you can relate to this, this is why I would say most of the people I work with came to me. Because at some point they were like, I need to work on this and I want help. And also, I don’t know everything, right? And so that’s my job, is to guide my clients and give them a framework that they can follow so that they can do it more easily.

And that’s why I coach, because a lot of times there’s things in the way, because obviously, if you think about it, looking at your numbers, figuring out ins and outs is not hard in terms of the actual thing, right? It’s not hard. What’s hard is actually doing it. What’s hard is trying not to judge yourself for the way you’ve been spending or not spending or not investing, right? That’s what’s hard.

So that’s all I have for you today. And so just to kind of summarize, think about, with any coaching relationship, think about what you want out of it. Oh, actually, one thing I want to say about this is, I think something that I really try to do is like how can I at least double the value of what I’m paying?

That’s not necessarily a monetary amount, but this actually goes hand in hand with what are the outcomes that I want? Why am I working with this person, right? Because you’re working with someone, not to just throw money away, right? It’s to get a certain outcome faster.

And actually, that’s something that I think is really important to note, is the way I think about when I work with coaches is it helps me focus on whatever I’m focusing on. And it gets me the outcome faster than if I did it on my own. It’s a time saver, right?

And this is really important, because otherwise you might get stuck in the amount of money that it costs and think of it simply from a spending perspective, which can be scary depending on the dollar amount. But I really want you to think of not the actual price of what you’re paying, but the outcome that you’re getting, right?

And so just to give you perspective, when you think about the stock market, maybe you can get 10 or 12% in terms of a traditional mutual fund investing. That’s really not a lot, right? And so the question is, how can you double the investment? What would that look like? And sometimes it is a monetary thing, in your business it’s definitely a monetary thing. But in many other areas, it’s not.

You can’t really put a price on it, but you can know if that outcome is worth it to you. Worth it meaning the amount of money you’re spending, is that outcome way more than what you’re paying for? And in my opinion, the outcome that you want from whatever coaching relationship you partake in should be way more, more than double in my opinion, than what you pay for. But I think thinking of it in a 2x type of return, I think is sort of easier to latch onto in the beginning.

All right, I hope this has been helpful. And for those of you who are clients, think about these questions I’ve been asking. Think about how you’re showing up thinking about the work you’re doing. And also, obviously, it’s really important to trust your coach and feel comfortable and safe to sort of bring your feedback. And don’t be afraid to tell them what’s best for you in terms of what you need to get the most out of it, right?

A coaching relationship should be, there should be a lot of trust, you should feel safe, you should feel comfortable. And so that’s also something else that’s really important. Okay, that’s all I have for you today. Talk to you next week.

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