Hello and welcome to the Business of Executive Coaching podcast. I'm Ellie Scarf, your host and mentor and coach to executive and leadership coaches. I am so pleased to be here today with the extraordinary Jo Saies. Now, there are sides to Jo that you learn over time and so I want to give you a bit of an insight into some of those so that I can quickly get you up to speed with her.
So on the coaching front, Jo is of course a highly experienced PCC credentialed coach with a huge amount of experience supporting leaders, organizations across the public sector and the private sector. She has a huge amount of professional experience as well, including roles in government, regulatory authorities, and for-purpose organizations. And Jo shares two things that have shaped her life, a vision impairment and a spirit of adventure that has seen her represent Australia as a disabled downhill ski racer.
And yes, she's just as amazing as she sounds. Welcome, Jo. It is a delight to have you here. Thank you so much.There's that imposter syndrome kicking in straight away. Do you know what? I've decided it's my purpose in life to be the hype woman for coaches who have that same experience because I often introduce people and everyone goes, oh, she's making me sound so good. And I'm like, that's because you are. So welcome.
Thank you. Thank you. And yeah, and own it. So Jo, I was hoping you would start for us with just a little bit of of your story you know story personal and your corporate to coach organization to coach story as well yeah great thank you so I guess since she flagged the vision impairment I was born with cataracts which is quite an unusual thing I had about 12 operations up until I was
about four years old removed the lenses of my eyes.
And have, you know, left with uncorrected about 15% vision, a little bit higher with wearing glasses, which is not much, but it's a good a real sense of needing to find solutions to things, you know, really kind of fend for myself, advocate for myself and also that spirit of adventure and wanting to sort of, you know, not be on the sidelines, live life to the fullest.
So I was very lucky, I guess, to have good family support and good sort of, you know, schooling and a school in high school, certainly that really supported me to sort of thrive and be quite adventurous, particularly in the outdoor area.
But, you know, study was always challenging. But again, really lucky, I guess, blessed to have a brain and be, you know, academically, you know, probably ahead of my peers. So I knew from a really early age that I needed to capitalise on that, that I would find employment difficult and that I would need to really, you know, work on my strengths and in order to have a really rich and fulfilling life.
So I went to uni, I did a psych degree. And interestingly,I got a first class honors degree, which came on top of my year. And when I finished that degree, I went to apply for the clinical master's in in psychology which was a bit of a turning point for me because I wasn't accepted you know in hindsight a blatant case of discrimination because the criteria was based on academic performance and work experience and I'd been working for a year as a research assistant and there was somebody.
Who I had studied with who did get into the course who had a much lower mark than me but you know I talk about it because it really it steered me in a different direction to clinical psychology and in hindsight I don't think I would have really handled clinical psych all that well but what happened just because it's very intense and it drains and it can be really you know overwhelming and so it steered me into, yeah, I was lucky then to really, I did a number of casual jobs, but my first really sort of, you know, proper job was with Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service as a rehabilitation counsellor.
And I talk about it because it really did, it was kind of like coaching in the, you know, late 80s when coaching didn't exist. It wasn't heard of as a thing. But it was, you know, people were moving out of institutions and into the community and they were being asked to identify individual goals.
So rather than everybody going off to woodwork and doing the program that the institution, you know, had determined, people were being asked, you know, what's your goal? And as a counsellor, my job was to sit down with with them talk to them about their goal and then work backwards and go what are the obstacles to achieving that goal how can we help you overcome them and so it was like oh my god you know this was a different side of psychology this was about helping people to you know to achieve their best to do well in spite of you know obstacles or challenges and not in that sort of clinical vein so you know so 10 years in that field firstly as a counsellor and then as a manager before I yes had this sort of leap into competitive ski racing.
which is another sort of whole story in itself but moved to Canberra. And when I stopped ski racing, I was still really involved in sport and I was really lucky to get a job working with what was then the Australian Sports Drug Agency.
So I spent 10 years and had an amazing career at ASDA, you know, working my way up to being education manager, education and communications manager, and to being education manager, education and communications manager, and then national operations manager, looking after the education, the media, the national
drug testing scheme, and the sort of policy and stuff that went with that. Worked at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, had an amazing experience there, was seconded overseas to the Irish Sports Council for six months and ran their doping program. So really incredible. And I guess it was that was the world of high performance that I was then missing from my own sporting career.
So it really shaped my interest in how to help people perform at their best. And in this case, without using performance enhancing drugs, but in my corporate role, it's more around performing at your best and in this case without using performance enhancing drugs but in my corporate role it's more around performing at your best and maintaining a sense of health and well-being because there's so much of sport that's unhealthy surprisingly and so many athletes that end up in particularly psychologically very you know poor places because of that pressure and that burnout so was a you was a great experience.
And in that time, you know, there's not really anywhere to go from sports drug testing. It's such a niche kind of area, So I was really lucky to have some coaching myself and I was also lucky just by chance to listen to an interview with Tony Grant who, as you know, set up the first sports psychology, sorry, coaching psychology degree.
I knew who you were going with, yeah. Yeah. I was like, wow, as you know, set up the first sports psychology, sorry, coaching psychology degree.I knew who you were going with, yeah. Yeah. I was like, wow, this is interesting. This is a whole new field of code. It wasn't new. It was mid-2000s, but, you know, to me it was new. And so I set about investigating whether that could be my next career step.
I went to an ICF conference. Rather than jumping in and doing my training, I went along to this conference to kind of check out if this was my thing and it was. So I did my training.
I had another three years of employment. I moved back to Adelaide and was working for the Commonwealth Public Service as a state manager at the same time as kind of setting up the business,
doing all the initial stuff of business name and website and part-time coaching before I had the opportunity to sort of go full-time into the business in in 2010 so that's my story oh my gosh Jo and and like the that period do you think the period of time in elite sport has shaped you as a coach absolutely because it's you know it's that recognition of you know both from my own experience as a ski racer but also working in the field like what are the levers that you have to influence performance that are not just about your technical skill and in ski racing it might be as you know microseconds that we're talking about you know hundreds or thousands of a second to give you that sort of performance advantage and I really really, you know, as a ski racer, I was not that technically brilliant.
I'd learnt a lot of bad habits as a vision-impaired ski racer because no one had properly taught me how to ski. But, you know, I had a lot of understanding of sports psychology and learning about managing anxiety and arousal control and, you know, techniques for kind of visualising success and all that stuff.
So, yeah, that ability to sort of translate that into how do I help my clients be, you know, be the best that they can be in the context that they're in using all of the available resources, which is where my business name comes from.
So PB Performance and Development, the PB is personal best and it's that sense of we can all strive a little bit harder to be our best yeah and best doesn't have to be a gold medal or a you know whatever but it can be a little bit more than what we did yesterday and how do i help people to do that yeah and i love this this intersection of you know not shying away from talking about disability and elite performance in the same sentence.
And I think sometimes that's something that, you know, is probably the baggage you were facing when you applied for your Masters of Clinical Psych. And that was the discrimination. And, you know, the fact that you're there with your clients working through, you know, not just, you know, how to function in an environment but actually like how do we how do we make sure we're using this talent that we've got in these people with a disability that maybe have been overlooked yeah yeah yeah absolutely so tell us a little bit about your business now okay so I think at the beginning I sort of did everything like I guess a lot of coaches and it's probably only been in the last, you know, I've been coaching now for 15 years, and it's only really been in the last sort of two or three years.
Where I've said to myself I'm at the point in my career where I really just pretty much want to do coaching. So that's a really sort of a, you know, a freeing kind of decision to make in a way.
So really working with organisations who are supporting their leaders and their professionals, subject matter experts, to be able to have the most impact and the most influence, again, within that context of, you know, shrinking resources and really, you know, rapidly changing goalposts and stakeholder expectations, which is largely what that for-purpose sector is dealing with, you know rapidly changing goalposts and stakeholder expectations which is largely.
What that for-purpose sector is dealing with you know really trying to income is reducing and expenses are increasing and how do you do more with less and how do you do that in an environment that's highly regulated shifting you know stakeholder expectations are increasing both from you know the regulator as well as you know clients and the media and the public rightly so too so a particular area you know of interest for me is aged care and disability but also public sector yeah and then i'm also really interested in working with professionals and subject matter experts who don't have that traditional line line manager sort of influence if you, but how do we support those people to, you know, to add more value and to develop skills around influencing and commercial sort of expertise to add value to the organisation.
So for that reason, I really like working with professional services firms and in particular law firms, accounting firms who have got a high sort of you know gaggle of subject matter experts who don't necessarily get access to the same leadership development as people leaders do.
Yeah and it's so important because there will be a point that those people are expected to suddenly step into leadership. Yeah, yeah. And when they're not equipped with that, it's, yeah, often. Yeah, so that transition point is a really key area of interest for me.
And you flagged sort of working with leaders with disabilities. It's a really, again, people with disability often don't sort of, you know, step forward or put their hand up either for, you know,
promotion or for indeed development.
So helping organisations to recognise where, you know, they can get more value out of someone with a disability who is in a, you know, potential leadership or on a pathway or even in a leadership, but maybe not adding as much value as they could by, you know some specialist kind of coaching around some of those issues
yeah yeah and do you tell me about so you've you're focused more on on one-on-one coaching but I'm assuming there's been a bit of a journey for you which has been more you know facilitation running of workshops consulting how's that evolved for you yeah look as I said at the beginning it was like yes I can do everything and even now if you see on my website I've got a list of training courses that.
I run that's like about you know 30 lines long it's like really I can do all of those things and I could if someone asked me and I put the effort into developing but you know and in the early days I developed a lot of content and, you know, put huge amount of time and effort into developing training courses, which I might run, you know, once, twice, three times if I was lucky. Then certainly, you know, team facilitation was a thing that I did.
And I got pretty nervous about that as much as I love being in a room with people. I didn't have the same control as I would if I was running a training per se you know I didn't I couldn't prepare quite as much as I as I needed to and then there were of course random bits of you know someone I knew needed an HR person to come and do a project I did a couple of projects for South Australian Sport Institute and also Australian Sports Commission that were unrelated to HR or my business at all, but, you know, people knew me because I worked in sport.
So, yes, there was a lot of I'll do anything and say yes to, you know, to whatever comes along. Yeah. But, you know, and it's really been hard to focus in on what's my niche, what's my real area interest expertise passion because of that fear of well if I do that you know I'm going to miss out on stuff and I you know I'm in my early 60s now and so it's only really now when I'm starting to think about well I'm not going to be working forever I really I do want to really just do what I love, which is one-on-one coaching.
Yeah, I love that. How would your clients and your coaches describe working with you? I'd like to think that I'm pretty natural in my coaching style. I really want it to feel like it's a normal conversation where the person is gaining insight by virtue of that conversation you know and it can be light-hearted and it can be a little bit playful at times but we're talking about you know things that are deeply kind of important to the person so it can shift I guess according to that that mood I certainly prefer to work at that transformational kind of level, so really where people are willing, helping to go under the bonnet, if you like, and kind of go, okay, this is the behaviour that you might want to change that you're thinking about or the goal that you want to achieve, which might be a behavioural or performance-related goal.
Let's see what's contributing to that or getting in the way of that happening. And so if I feel like the client is comfortable to go there, then that's where I love working.
And I think people find that, you know, where they get the most kind of value and probably the most surprise in terms of I wasn't really expecting this in in coaching yeah I think it's amazing when you're coaching and I'm imagining you coaching someone to find for them to find this person who is this very safe pair of hands to hold these things they're exploring but in a very safe way which yeah which is yeah the energy I feel Jo yeah thank you so how do people engage with you so I'm imagining that you're sort of sitting on a combination of some coaching panels and you have some direct clients some associate clients is that how how it works yeah yep so I'll have some individual clients that will contact me you know outside of their organization.
Who are really looking for generally either interview coaching which I seem to have a bit of a thing for and I enjoy it and or career you know general career development stuff like I'm stuck in my career and I don't know what's the next step or I hate my job or I hate my boss, what do I do?
Then, you know, there'll be some organisations who will obviously want to talk through coaching of a cohort, you know, a team or a group of, you know, people who are facing a particular challenge.
So I do then have a couple of really key clients that I work with. One is a large sort of, you know, global coaching panel that I get a lot of work through also the Commonwealth Government their Leadership Academy and the Australian Public Service Commission so I get some work through there and interestingly that's new graduates so it's a really kind of great balance to the sort of corporate leadership sort of you know other end of the scale work these are people very early in their career who are floundering you know deer in the headlights kind of stuff.
I'm you know I'm in this job now and I don't know what to do and what's expected of me and I don't have a career plan and like you know you're you're 22 you might not have a career plan that's okay yeah that's okay and you know ideally I'd like to work with organizations who are you know who see the need beyond just that cohort of people that they want to develop to go how do we really embed coaching you know with as a cultural thing within our organizations so I've run some programs teaching leaders how to coach you know coaching skills which are different to not different they're a subset of the skills that you and I might have in our sort of, you know, day-to-day coaching of clients, but how do leaders apply those skills in their context, working with people so that they get that ripple effect of, you know, they're impacting the people in their team who are feeling more empowered, they're doing better work, they're impacting on their clients and the organisation benefits as a whole.
Yeah, and the practical impacts, right, which is when we've empowered our people, then they are more independent. That gives me more time back. You know, there's less, you know, more decision-making,empowerment and, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and the cost-benefit of that, you know, compared to paying for coaching, you know, four, six leaders, you know, over a short period of time, you know, I think is really, you know, a beneficial thing for an organisation to go, yeah, we can teach our leaders how to do this stuff.
And it gives us a much bigger bang for buck. Yeah, absolutely. I think I read something, it might have been Kim Cameron's work on positive leadership was that every hour that a leader invests in coaching pays back, I think it was between four and six hours of time returned to that leader wow great pretty cool stat yeah and I was like yeah there's some ROI calculation
we could do yeah yeah awesome yeah amazing okay so obviously you've been in business for quite some time now what have you learned I, I guess, about growing businesses, but also about yourself as you've grown a business?
Yeah, I feel like I've learnt a lot, really. Of course, you know, that longevity.So I think the learning is around resilience being such a key part of business.
You know, yes, there's all the sort of technical skills that you learn about coaching and about, you know, doing business. But it's just such a strong component of resilience.
And mine has been pretty strong, but it's certainly wavered over the years. I also think about that sense of relationships and how important they are over the long haul again.
It's sort of not a short-term gain. I think learning that as a business owner in sole practice, you absolutely need help. You know, as much as I'm a bit of a control freak and want to sort of feel like I can do everything on my own recognizing one that I need help and to what that help is and when I need it and how to get it is important and the other thing that I've sort of really learned is about risk tolerance because I look at myself and I think I'm smart I'm hard working.
I'm smart, I'm hardworking, I'm, you know, good at what I do and I'm probably not as successful as, you know, Richard Branson or, you know, Bill Gates or, you know, whatever, who have that sort of entrepreneurial spirit, which I think really comes from, one, having good ideas but also managing that risk kind of aversion.
And so for me, business is a game around how much risk can can you tolerate for me both sort of financially you know I come from a family that basically you spent the money when you earned it you know so it was like you know for me to invest in aspects of the business before money had come in was kind of you know an impossibility so really looking back, I think, you know.
it is what it is. I can't do anything about that. But understanding your own sort of tolerance for risk and how that, you know, that relates to your business and the decisions that you make is
really important.
That's such a good reflection. And I often talk about the fact that we actually have to do what we have to do to make our nervous system okay right we have to we have to do and for some people that is you know having a part-time job while they're in growth or you know something that represents you know maybe it's a consulting contract even though they don't want to do that just to even out the peaks and troughs along the way and I think that that's a different slant on what you're saying which is yeah we have to recognize that we have this innate risk tolerance that is a result of all of our story right the family we grew up in and the experiences.
We had and how early risks that we took played out and we have to know one to to know what our nervous system needs but also to know what is the right amount of stretch for us because if we were to say oh yeah go and you know go and drop 100k on you know this thing i don't know if it's going to pay off but if it does it'll pay off big like that's it but maybe it's okay to say oh well i'm going to try this experiment and know, there's going to be a small exposure of time or money but, yeah.
Yeah. And what have you learnt about yourself? I think I've learnt that I can do more than what I think is possible. I think I've learnt to be very resourceful. And, again, you know, when I say that I'm sort of thinking ah I think this is an extension of the traits that I really developed very early on because of that disability yeah so as I'm kind of saying it out loud I'm actually just reflecting about that and going yeah using my strengths my strengths, being resourceful, finding, you know, getting help when I need it, finding solutions to problems were all things that I developed really early on.
You know, I can remember examples of things that happened in primary school that would indicate to me, oh yeah, I was using that strength then, or I was, you know, I had already learned that I needed to solve my own problems yeah or that I needed help and so I think being in business is just sort of magnifies that to the to the nth degree I you know the other thing that I really learned and and I'm still learning it and I'm still mystified by it in a way is how hard it is to sell a product that's not really well understood both in terms of what it is and how helpful it can be so you know I went to a lot of business marketing sales training stuff in the early stages of my career you know local business network things that taught you how to do business plans and what a website would be or whatever.
And no one could help me translate that into coaching because coaching is a thing that's not well, you know, people have so many different views of what coaching is and not that many people can just instantly go, oh, yeah, I know that a coach will be helpful in this way, as we would if we were selling plumbing or, you know, a haircut or, you know, doctor's appointment or whatever.
So it is I just think, you know, I could have done better at sales and marketing if I had a different product. But I haven't got a different product. I've got coaching. I love coaching.
And how do I learn how to you know how to market and sell that in a way that that is accessible yeah yeah and that is so right that it's not like something people can touch and feel and you know understand are you finding that people are like there's a growing sophistication about your clients understanding.
what it is is that shifting look I'd like to think it is and I'd also like to think that I'm probably getting a bit more you know kind of savvy about it yeah but you know I'm still I guess I'm still surprised and disappointed you know that sort of from my that first time I listened to you know Anthony Grant's kind of talk about coaching and I went know that sort of from my that first time I listened to you know Anthony Grant's kind of talk about coaching and I went wow that sounds amazing like I got it straight away yeah and you know I practically read I was on you know in the old days used to listen to the Qantas soundtrack and they'd have interviews with leaders that was where I got all my leadership sort of insight from in my early career and I just probably ran off the plane to kind of go, where can I sign up for this thing?
It sounds amazing. But sorry, to answer your question, yes. Look, I think there is a growing understanding. But there's still, you know, as I'm sure you and the listeners would know, an awful lot of people out there doing coaching that's not coaching.
So it's murking. Is that a word? Muddies the water. It makes it murky. Muddies the water. It it's murky is that a word muddies the water it makes yeah yeah yeah so yeah it's hard and there's a few stages isn't there there's like firstly there's the understanding of what is it and then there's the next understanding which is understanding the benefit of it and understanding how it's going to help you to solve your problems.
Yeah.As an organization, particularly. Yeah. Right. And not, oh, it's nice to have, but actually it's, you know, it's a necessity or it's a business imperative that pays off.
And yeah, I think most coaches have had that issue, which is it's not easy. Yeah. And I mean, I always, you always hear me talk about, you know, it's easier easy yeah these itself and i mean i always you always hear me talk about you know it's easier to sell a painkiller than a vitamin and yeah coaching really fits very nicely into that vitamin category yeah so a lot of the work we have to do is figuring out well what is the pain that this solves and how do i make sure i can get in that light as well yeah yeah yeah and i think you know adding to that then the other things.
That I've learned about myself really and it's again really only probably recently that I've been sort of ramping up the sales and marketing stuff but recognizing this self-doubt piece is really really profound and really really limiting like I think I've got it much worse than most people.
I think that's I mean I'm you know that's silly of course everybody's you know relative but the more I come to you know connecting with the stuff that I know I need to do to you know to have a good thriving business the more I can see how there is so much going on internally that stops me and I don't know where that's come from or why that's there.
You know, it's obviously very kind of complex, but it's certainly been a thing to grapple with. And, you know, along with that, most of my business career up until the last couple of years,I've worked alone and so that sense of I've got to solve all of these problems you know without any sort of day-to-day kind of just bouncing ideas off getting moral support you know having someone make a cup of tea.
if I've had a you know a bad experience or whatever is it's pretty tough and I'm good at sort of resourcing other you know supports around me and I've got good friends I've you know really connected in with the ICF coaching network, with the human resources network, company directors network.
So I've got lots of good people around me,but it's still a different thing to be on your own all day, every day and all night, every night sort of doing this thing. Yeah, absolutely.
And I just know that there are so many coaches out there in that same position and I have this theory that it's something about this quality of both our ability to introspect like that as coaches Jo because I think most people probably can't notice these things in themselves. But the ability that you have to do that, and I know a lot of coaches do, and it's a very human experience and I suspect it makes you and us even better at what we do because of that.
Do you feel like it's that deeply felt experience? Yeah. I mean, I haven't had the experience of everything in life there's certainly a you know pretty rich tapestry of things you can do but I've experienced a lot of things that you know have absolutely shaped who I am and helped me to sort of feel empathy compassion you know if not you know deep understanding certainly a sense of being able to connect in with some of that experience and to feel a really good degree of comfort of being able to connect in with some of that experience and to feel a really good degree of comfort of being able to explore that experience with that person.
Which I may not have felt in that more clinical psychology setting so you know taking us back to that first comment that I made I think you know I think that would have been tough for me to go
to some of those places where you know that are really sort of sitting underneath a deeper clinical, you know, therapeutic sort of context.
Yeah, I mean, so I was going to ask you, you know, what the biggest challenges you found in growing your business. And I think we've sort of probably touched on, you know, a number of them.
So obviously, sales and marketing is one piece of it. And, you know, have you found it to be challenging? It sounds like you've, I was know have you found it to be challenging it sounds
like you've I was going to say not to be in community in the way we are when we're in organizations but it sounds like you've done a really good job of building community like how's that what's that for you or how have you gone about doing that yeah I think connection in with the professional associations has been really important to me.
And again, it's over that long period of time, you know,and getting involved in things by volunteering and contributing to, you know, to different things, I think, as well as just sort of, you know, being a member.
So I've had a lot of sort of roles within the International Coach Federation, the South Australian branch, also the Canberra branch when I was there, you know, as president for a couple of years.
didn't know that so i would have put that in your intro joe yeah so i think that you know willingness to sort of give back as well as you know to sort of be a participant always striving for that sort of additional sort of professional credibility you know through credentialing in each of those organisations, but also through non-work related, you know, volunteering and community kind of based activities.
And yeah, I guess, again, because of being largely on my own for a lot of my life, I've really, you know, had to find those opportunities to connect with people and connect at that really, you know, at that deep sort of values level. I was a member of the Alliance Club for three or four years, and again, sort of values level.
I was a member of the Lions Club for three or four years and again sort of president for a couple of years. And, you know, one of my closest friends has come from that, you know, that involvement in that group.
Now I'm no longer involved and there was a lot of stuff about, you know, Lions that was not my thing in the end. But, you know, I made a really, really, really strong close friend, ally, you know, confidant through that.
So, yeah, I think just being involved in stuff is really, really important to give that sort of connection with people and also that sort of experience of different aspects of life that you won't get by sitting at your desk doing coaching, you know, or writing proposals all day.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, God, could you imagine writing proposals all day yeah absolutely oh god could you imagine writing proposals all day that's rough what are you most proud of when you think about you know about what you've built in your business yeah look you know I feel proud of every single coaching engagement really because I think about that journey that that person's been on and even if they've made a small shift that's still a shift for them and you know.
I'm not proud in the sense that I take you know responsibility for that but just proud of that person but for me personally I'm probably proud of just that the longevity and the resilience of sticking with it you know 15 years and I'm proud of I guess that credibility and that reputation that I have and again it's not a reputation that means oh people are banging down my door to you know to offer me work it's not that at all although I'd like to get to that point but it's just a reputation that I feel like I know there's enough people out there and you know.
I'm in South Australia so it's a you know a reasonably sort of smallish parochial kind of community but I feel there's enough people out there that you know may have heard of my name and associate that positively you know with a sort of high degree of ethics you know a high degree of professionalism someone that's good to work with easy to work with and that's super important to me in terms of the business. Absolutely.
And, you know, I just know for new coaches listening in that, you know, hearing stories like yours of a business that you started and have, you know, run for 15 years successfully and yes, ups and downs, no doubt, but that's really inspiring.
And so, yeah, I'd want everyone to hear that, that, you know, this is something that is a possibility. And there is, I think you spoke also to this idea of you have to have a bit of resilience about it as well.
Because there will be the ups and there will be the downs. Yeah. And that's part of it. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about how you have worked? So we were obviously a member of my program in the Accelerator.
How has that been for you, Jo?Like what have you found most helpful about it? Thanks. Look, lots really. And it's just, you know, as I said, I really longed in the early stages for very specific business support that was very relevant to coaching.
And I couldn't find that anywhere. I found lots of great business people who didn't know coaching and lots of great coaches who didn't really know how to do business.
And so they were good at coaching me, but I wanted more than coaching. I wanted actual advice, but I didn't want, you know, advice that was relevant to a plumber.
So to me finding this kind of beautiful connection between someone who can support you to grow your business with a very, very coaching-specific kind of lens has been amazing.
I think just some really basic stuff that has really resonated with me, like just now thinking of my client as the organization has really shifted you know how I relate to the sort of strategies and the sales and marketing that I'm doing articulating the pain you know for the organization not so much for the individual leader and just.
I guess that community to be able to ask really silly kind of questions you know a lot of what we do day to day is sort of like oh should I actually say this to this person or would it be better to say this again you're not going to get that from a pure coach because they're going to say well you know what what do you think you should do and you know but to just have the benefit of someone saying well look I think really from my experience this would be good this is what's worked and yeah.
it's a great community and I'd really love to experience this would be good this is what's worked.
And yeah it's a great community and I'd really love to yeah and I know that you know your inputs are hugely valued as well and I think that's the joy of the community is that there's that real you know everyone's asking questions everyone's answering questions and it feels like yeah we're all in it together which I love yeah you So if you were to give some advice to a new coach starting a business, what advice would you give them?
Hang in there. Hang in there. Hang in there. So, no, I have got four things that I've written. The first one is say yes to everything at the beginning, not for your whole career, but at the beginning, say yes to everything to build, and I've got four Cs, build confidence, build credibility, build connections, and build clarity on what it is that you really, really want to do.
And I think, you know, we do lots of talking around finding your niche and really settling in on what your core programs are. But until you've sort of dabbled in the sandpit,
it's kind of hard to know what you really want to do so I guess I'd say yes say yes to everything but not forever there's a point where you kind of go okay now here's what I'm going to focus on and you know every single person's journey is individual so that point will be different yeah for everybody yeah I love that and I love that idea of like we'll do some work on thinking about you know who your ideal clients are and the work you want to do, but we hold it really lightly because invariably 12 months down the track.
it's going to look different because things will have emerged and it will be even better than you imagined it could be.Yeah. You change, the environment changes, the, you know, stuff around you changes.
Yeah. My second one is really around just holding your your allies your advocates your referrers really really close you know I was not I've heard people talk about I was so lucky to have somebody that you know gave me a whole bunch of work when I first started and I that set me off on my you know I didn't have this mythical magic fairy that landed work in my lap I've had to sort of really you know struggle for it along the way but the people that have either helped by referring or offering you know some advice or being willing to read something that I've written or mentioning me to somebody.
You know it's really like really just hang on to those people tightly I love that yeah that's gold dust isn't it yeah the third one is around routine really especially again in the early days establish a routine as if you were at work you know like and I you know like most of us probably work from home so it's a matter of you know going from my bedroom to my my study but I had a very specific study and a really set routine in my first couple of years.
I worked nine till 9am till 7pm every single day for you know and that was my routine to get all of the stuff done to set up the business to you know to have the good systems and processes now that was probably extreme in that amount of work but and I did have a little bit of a burnout you know kind of phase about three years in but yeah just having that routine I'm really Joey.
I've got you yep elite athlete that's those vibes yeah so everyone listening in you do not have to wake nine to seven at night no that was very it's a very good point yeah just have your
timing set out like you know like you would be at work at nine you'd sit down at your desk and of course I had you know breaks during the day and I had my coffee break it you know maybe at a slightly different time but I always had a coffee break yeah lunch you know whatever because you can feel so rudderless when you step away from an organization it's like wow and yeah and if you're like me which I know a lot of people are maybe not you Jo because you are very dedicated but you can fall into a procrastination.
hole especially if you've been a bit burnt out and it can be really hard to do the things you
know you need to do especially if you've lacked external accountability and so yeah having a routine having some commitments ideally also to somebody else if you need external accountability but yeah.
I love that yeah and just as an aside you know that burnout was a challenging time but I did I ended up actually going back into part-time work and again that's not for everybody but I did it because I needed to not have so much focus on the business so in my 15 years of coaching I've had three periods where I've done part-time roles and each one of those times my business has done better because I have been a little bit preoccupied with other stuff so I've again I've had to manage the boundaries really carefully so I'm not sort of overcommitting myself in both spaces.
But the benefit to me was around, okay, so my business isn't the be all and end all. It's a bit of my life and I'll focus on it. And, of course, in that sense things did well. That's so interesting.
Do you think that's because you were able to just be a little more relaxed about it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I was working a bit harder because I had a job to juggle and a business, but I was much more relaxed.
Yeah, that's an interesting energy to bring into marketing and business development, right? Yes, it is. Really interesting. Which is kind of more expansive, more free.
Yeah, interesting. Yeah. And my last tip was just around getting, and I know you've spoken about this a lot, but getting comfortable with discomfort because a lot of it is uncomfortable. And if we stop doing things because it's uncomfortable, you know, you're going to stall pretty quickly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I could talk about that forever, but I think that's such a good reminder. And, you know, it's one thing for me to talk about it, but, but hearing it repeated, you know, from you I think is really important, Jo.
So thank you very much for that. They are excellent tips. So if it's okay, I'd love to wrap up with a rapid-fire round where I'm going to ask a few quick questions. Sure.
And, yeah, they're not too hard. Okay, first question. If you could coach anyone in the world, who would it be? Well, I initially thought of Donald Trump because I feel like he's somebody who is so desperately in need of coaching that surely but then I thought he's uncoachable so we put him aside and I thought about Kurt Fearnley who's a wheelchair athlete you know very credentialed yeah also a bit of an adventurer like I am called the Kokoda track not that I've done Kokoda but I've done a few other adventurous things.
But he's chair of the NDIA board, the National Disability Insurance Agency board, and I just feel like this is such an important piece that we need to get right and I don't know whether Kurt needs coaching.
Or not and I don't know anything about his performance but I just think if I could help one person to be an awesome leader it would be okay well if anyone out there knows Kurt and wants to connect him with an incredible coach feel free to contact me.
I'll put you in touch I love that thank you that's a great one podcast or book recommendation for other coaches listening in out there yeah book i think someone else has mentioned immunity to change that's a rule you know that's a big one from a coaching point of view i really love marcia reynolds i had to look at her name even though i know i really i've done some coach training with marcia reynolds so coach the person not the problem is a a great resource for me in terms of, again, getting under that sort of, you know, under the bonnet of what's going on for people, not just what you see on the surface.
Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you. And final one, an essential tool or could be a piece of software that makes your business life better?
Well, they all have their moments of good and bad. Yeah, right. I've got to say, you know, I know people have spoken a bit about COVID and the challenges for me COVID was a big plus for my business so with as someone with a vision impairment I don't drive and so driving and not driving has always been a really big challenge for me in whatever.
I've done business and self-employment. So COVID and moving everything kind of online, so I'm going to say Zoom or Teams or whatever version, you know, you use, has really changed my capacity to go, yeah, I can do that piece of work rather than, oh, hang on, it's 30 minutes away by cab, that means, but I can't get back to there.
I'll have to catch the bus to, you know, whatever, and then I could potentially walk from that appointment to there but then I'll need my shoes and I can't carry my shoes as well as my you know you get the picture so doing stuff online coaching online incredible opportunity for me and the other one is just using I use acuity but any calendar tool to be able to set appointment get people to book in appointments not doing the back and forth it's like oh my god it's such a basic thing.
Yeah yeah no i agree amazing well look joe thank you so much i think all those insights have been both relatable and hugely insightful and so thank you so. If people want to learn more about you, get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that?
Yep, so either LinkedIn, there's a click there to book a, you know, a discovery call or website, http://pbperformance.com.au Brilliant.And we'll put all of those in the show notes as well so that people can click through.
Thank you, Jo. It's wonderful to have you here. And, yeah, all the best in the show notes as well so that people can click through. Thank you, Jo. It's wonderful to have you here. And, yeah, all the best for the coming months.Thanks, Ellie.Bye.
