Team

One of the people I am so pleased to have met on my own coaching journey is Melissa Ford. I first met her at Steve Chandler’s ACS school in the States when I was just starting out as a coach. At first, I was intimidated by her because of the success she was already having in her business. However, her kindness and generosity melted any insecurity I had and helped me see that I could, too, build a prosperous practice from a place of deep service and care for others.

In this conversation that we recorded recently, Melissa mentioned a quote from British author Neil Gaiman: “Follow your obsession.” My family often says I’m obsessed with coaching. Over the past year, my focus has evolved beyond helping coaches grow their practice. My mission is now to shift the consciousness of the planet by up-levelling the coaching profession. I want coaching to be as well-paid and prestigious as any other. Coaching is more than just a profession for me; it’s a calling.

In our profession, making a difference and running a profitable business go hand in hand. Money will follow the impact you make and the conversations you have. Being obsessed with this outer purpose while running a business is essential. It’s about setting monetary goals that are fun and exciting without losing focus on the bigger picture.

In this short video, Melissa talks about fees and coaches’ insecurities around them, being obsessed with the impact we make for our clients, having fun and shifting from competition to inspiration. It’s no surprise that we had to have Melissa back as faculty again this year.

In the AJC Coaching Career school, we encourage everyone to also see one another with compersion, which means to be genuinely happy for their success as if it is your own.

Whether or not you join the next AJC school, keep surrounding yourself with colleagues who inspire and challenge you, embrace your obsession and keep growing. And share this video with any colleague who would benefit from watching it.

I had an incredibly valuable conversation with Barb Patterson recently for the AJC Coaching Career School which I am sharing a link to at the bottom of this email.

I asked Barb to be on the faculty this year because not only does she work with corporations very successfully, but she does it in a way that is completely aligned with the philosophy of the AJC Coaching Career School. Barb is heart-centred, grounded, and lives and breathes service. It’s not just something she speaks about but she walks her talk. This is one of the things that makes her stand out in the corporate world, and in my mind, it is one of the keys to her success.

One of the things I loved about this interview is the emphasis Barb put in creating authentic relationships over simply being visible online. I use social media a lot but often very differently than most coaches and I think it’s why the engagement on my content is often so high. People are craving connection rather than wanting to be impressed by you.

The one thing I can’t teach in my school is to have someone really care for others. I’m finding that the coaches in the school this year all have that in common. Coaching isn’t just a job for them. It’s a calling. I’ve found that the most successful coaches in this profession deeply care about others and love engaging with them in a real way.

In the conversation with Barb, we also talked about:
– Bringing Your Best Self to Business
– Coaching Beyond a Specific Niche
– Creating Impactful Client Relationships
– Understanding the Client’s World
– Connecting Business Goals with Deeper Insights
– The Power of Context in Coaching
– Case Studies: The Impact of Coaching

I request you bring your most open listening to this conversation. If you do I am confident that you will find a lot of practical value in Barb’s wisdom that will help you as a coach and as a human being.

This year, I have some new faces on the faculty for the AJC Coaching Career School. One of them is Chris Dorris, who is not only one of the most generous and open-hearted men I have ever met, but he is also a powerful seven-figure coach who works with leaders in large corporations to become more mentally tough, effective, and productive.

I asked Chris Dorris to join the faculty because he has not only achieved incredible business success year after year but also has some really unique insights into working with corporate leaders. Many coaches in the previous two cohorts wanted to work with more clients like this, so it made complete sense to ask Chris to join the faculty, which he immediately agreed to. In addition to Chris’ two-hour masterclass later this year, everyone in the school will get a copy of Chris’s book on mental toughness mantras.

Today, I want to give you a taste of what his master class will be like. Chris shared that he’s never been certified but has made high six figures and even seven figures by focusing on serving his clients deeply. This approach has allowed him to create a comfortable schedule with plenty of free time for what matters most to him.

This is why I love having Chris on the faculty. He’s not about sleazy marketing techniques or tricking people into working with him. He’s about genuine service and excellence. Chris mentioned a key question from Steve Chandler that changed his life: “If that was the only customer you were allowed to have, how would you serve them more deeply?” This mindset of going deeper with existing clients rather than constantly seeking new ones is crucial.

Chris’s advice is to trust your passions, be amazing at what you do, and stay on the path. It’s about constant improvement and commitment to the craft. He believes that we live in a flawless universe where trusting in our passions leads to abundance.

I love that Chris emphasises the importance of creativity and over-delivering. It’s not just about doing the norm but finding unique ways to serve your clients beyond their expectations. This mindset has significantly impacted my own business and it’s something we keep exploring deeper at AJC.

I wanted to share some fresh thoughts about UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and how it applies to coaching, enrollment and every aspect of our lives.

So many spiritual teachers, including Sydney Banks, would discuss love being the answer. There are videos online where “3 Principles” teachers have discussed this and I have felt a beautiful energy of love from so many teachers and mentors in my community. I heard that love is the feeling that arises when our “personal mind” quietens down.

Growing up, I felt a lot of insecurity and fear. It seemed that when other children didn’t want to play with me at school, love was alluding me. As a teenager, when I was bullied at school, I felt unworthy of love and didn’t realise that the unworthy feeling was a thought I had turned into a belief by holding onto it tightly.

The more I see that I am love and that this feeling is not conditional on my behaviour, past, or anything else, the more I can share this feeling with others. As many have written, putting on your mask before helping others is essential. As Sydney Banks pointed out, you cannot give away what you don’t have.

My journey with coaching and the Principles has, in many ways, been a journey of self-love, of dropping the thoughts that were getting in the way of my true essence. As I have done so, I have seen I was not alone. This is everyone’s true essence. The more I have seen this, the more I have to give to my spouse, clients, prospective clients, children, friends, family members, neighbours, and strangers.

I have seen that you outgive the universe. The more I bring unconditional love into my conversations and interactions with others, the more the universe reflects back to me. Years ago, a client signed up with me because I kept serving him even after he said no to a proposal I made for us to work together. Another way to put it: I kept loving him regardless of whether he paid me.

I committed today to bringing unconditional love to every coach in my coaching school, no matter what they say, share, do, or don’t do. I am creating a safe space for people to be themselves wherever I go because that’s when people feel loved—when they can be themselves and not feel judged. I am bringing that to my school’s Facebook group and my coaching community, too.

One of the 3 Principles teachers I am honoured to have in this year’s AJC is Dr Bill Pettit. The conversation we had about his life-changing realisations will help you see the deeper impact this understanding can have in your clients’ lives.

This year, I have the pleasure of welcoming Dr William Pettit Jr. to the faculty of the AJC Coaching Career School. He has a unique expertise in medicine, the psychology of the Three Principles and creating through who we are Being.

He has numerous case studies of helping clients and patients with challenges and issues that would stump other professionals. I have frequently shared his videos with my own clients over the years to show them that transformation is possible even in the most challenging circumstances. This masterclass will be worth the price of the school alone!

Dr. Pettit’s journey is a testament to the power of understanding our spiritual nature. He shared how meeting Sydney Banks in 1983 changed his life. He had been suffering from significant stress and clinical depression, thinking it was due to external circumstances and his genes. But he discovered that it was Thought that was causing his distress.

One of the most impactful stories he shared was about a man diagnosed with schizophrenia who had been institutionalised for 47 years. In a session with Dr. Pettit, this man had a breakthrough, realising he had been making himself sick with his own thinking, which led to a profound recovery that made him able to leave the hospital shortly after.

He also recounted the story of a woman who had endured severe trauma and was hospitalised multiple times due to suicide attempts. After a conversation with him, she began a journey towards peace and healing, demonstrating the power of understanding our true nature.

These stories highlight that this deeper understanding is not just about reducing stress but about transforming lives at a fundamental level. Dr. Pettit’s work shows that mental health issues are not fixed entities but states of being that can be healed through insights.

Thank you, Dr. Pettit, for sharing your invaluable insights. I’m looking forward to your upcoming masterclass at AJC.

If you want to learn more about Dr Bill Pettit,  go to his website at https://drbillpettit.com/

In 2012, I started my journey of being a professional coach. I was cooking vegetable fajitas and heard a voice say, you should be a coach. It felt like the universe (or God) was speaking to me. 12 days later, I was sitting in a hotel room in London at the start of a year-long training with Jamie Smart on his Inner Circle program.

I was naive at the start and thought within 3 months, I would be able to quit my corporate job and pursue coaching full-time. I didn’t expect to be introduced to a new paradigm in psychology.

Over the next 12 months, my life completely changed. I had many powerful insights that resulted in actual changes. I stopped procrastinating as much, dropped a lot of ego, and started seeing possibilities I couldn’t have thought of before.

However, the coaching practice was growing very slowly. Not only that but as I looked around, I saw that I wasn’t the only one struggling. Many marketing experts advised me to start a blog, build a website, or use video to create clients, but I couldn’t see anyone doing it successfully. Creating clients seemed like some dark art, and often, the approaches suggested by self-proclaimed experts felt unethical.

I hired Steve Chandler in 2014, thinking this would be my last investment to give coaching a real go before I gave up. Almost immediately after hiring Steve, my business started to grow. Steve introduced me to ideas that changed my bank balance and made me more effective with clients. I began to see what he meant in his books by service, which was far beyond what I imagined. He helped me drop my ego around my fees and become a working coach with full practice. He helped me see that it was better to have a paying client at a lower fee than no client at all.

Over time, Steve took the mystery out of client enrollment and helped me create systems that led to a growing ethical coaching practice that I could be proud of. I learned that I needed to give people an experience of coaching rather than talk about coaching. I needed to help people before they hired me, not after they paid me. It seems obvious now, but it didn’t back then.

However, it took some time before I made the same income as I had at my corporate job. There were many times I questioned myself, judged myself, and doubted myself. Was I fooling myself? I sometimes wondered if I would forever be a struggling coach. Thankfully, I stayed on the path and knew, on some level, that my fears reflected my thinking. Steve believed that I could have a successful practice, and I trusted him.

Over the years, my business grew, my impact on clients increased, my understanding of the Principles deepened, and whilst I had challenges, my ability to handle them improved.

Like many coaches, I have been frustrated by programs aimed at coaches with a poor track record of success. That frustration was just a thought, AND I wanted to offer an alternative. I am super proud of the coaching school I created in 2022 with massive support from Steve Chandler. So many of those who have graduated from the school have had wild success, and it’s very rewarding to watch graduates go from strength to strength. I want many role models available to this community of coaches who are earning a respectable income, doing good work and operating ethically.

Please use all the resources I am posting on social media and on my website to support your business growth. Together, we can raise the tide for all.