The Two Types of Coaches: Which One Are You?
Some life and meditation coaches seem to take off quickly, while others struggle despite their passion and dedication. In this episode, I share a perspective that might change the way you see your coaching journey. I’ll walk you through a key distinction that could explain why some coaches burn out while others stay in the game for the long haul. Plus, I’ll share three powerful questions to help you get clear on where you stand and help you navigate your future.
Takeaways:
The key difference between service-driven and business-driven coaches
Why one type often succeeds faster but struggles long-term
Three powerful questions to help you identify your coaching motivation
How to align your coaching path with both meaning and success
GIFT FOR YOU
If you’re a meditation teacher or coach who wants to create unique meditations people listen to over and over again, enroll in my free course Meditation Script Mastery
Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Welcome to another episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am your host, Lou Redmond, and this podcast exists to empower meditation teachers and coaches and creators and soulful humans who. Who want to make a difference, who want to share their work in the world. We help you do that through the content, through our guests wanting to empower you to make your impact, make your living, and keep getting a chance to do this work. Playing the infinite game of soul work. So that's why we gather or why I share and I hope you listen, but thanks for being here. Whether you're new or whether you're an old listener. Today is a solo episode and we are going to be talking about two types of coaches before we do, because I've been doing some solo episodes recently. Can you tell? Some of the solo episodes have been rips from my YouTube videos. And I'm going to be super transparent about this because I also love taking you behind the scenes of how I do my work because I also want to make things easier for you. For example, if you have a YouTube video and it's really solid, why not take the audio and put it on a podcast platform or put it on an insight timer or an aura app or something like this? So some of my podcasts recently have been those rips, and I'm just curious if you can tell. Obviously, I don't. I don't riff like I am doing it right now, so you miss a little of that riffing. I'm hoping it's okay. And I'd just be curious if, you know, because YouTube and podcasts are different and I've been putting a little bit more attention. I'm planning to put a lot more attention into YouTube and trying to. Yeah. Make things sync. For example, the topic that I'm gonna be talking about today is also a YouTube video, but I'm actually gonna speak it with you fresh and have a YouTube video that's separate when I speak it to a video. So it's just so much different for speak video and audio. So I'm trying out both. Curious. If you can tell the difference, leave a comment, let me know. I so appreciate you listening. Okay, so let's talk about two different types of coaches in the meditation, wellness, spiritual coaching world. Let's call them Coach A and Coach B. Coach A gets into coaching because they feel a calling to help people. They likely underwent a personal transformation and they want to give back what they received. Coach B sees coaching as a business opportunity to capitalize on. They desire a lifestyle that can afford them more financial and time freedom. Coach A is more focused on the service of helping people. Coach B is more focused on building a coaching business. Coach A doesn't often have a lot of business interests. Coach B loves geeking out on marketing strategies and learning about sales. Coach and although it might seem like I am judging one more than the other, neither is inherently good or bad. But it's worth considering where you stand. I believe the Coach A's will ultimately be more fulfilled in the long term. However, the coach Bs tend to have more success in the short term. And this is kind of like the essence of this podcast, right? The art, the the Coach A's and the business, the Coach B's of meditation. So it's a little ironic that I'm kind of leaning against Coach B's because I really want this to be for Coach A's and for us to learn the business side as we go. Because I find myself walking the high beam of Coach A and B. I'll give an example where I was strongly Coach B. You may have heard me tell this story before, but in 2018 I got a gig training school teachers on bringing mindfulness to their classrooms. That gig made $2,200 more lump sum money than anything I made up to that point. As Coach B, I saw the opportunity. I went all in on mindfulness in schools, built a website, created a curriculum, and started hustling. I had a skill and passion for mindfulness. I enjoyed the work, but mainly saw it as a way to make a sustainable income. While it was rewarding, getting new gigs was a slogan. Plus, I didn't feel working with kids and teachers was my dharma. I had to hide parts of myself in this secular school setting. Starting this business wasn't wrong, but it wasn't coming from the purest place. After a few years of getting momentum, I wasn't excited about it and I started phasing it out of my work. If we're not Coach A, we'll likely not stay in the game for the long haul. We won't suffer through the hard parts because our why is not coming from the deepest place. Another Coach B example. I was on someone's podcast years ago and I won't say their name, but they promoted themselves as, let's say, Life Coach Dave. I saw on Instagram the other day that his business is now helping people run ads to get more remote working jobs or something like that. So clearly he wasn't in the life coaching game anymore. I guess in some sense you could say that he was, but not in how I see life coaching. He wasn't in it for the long game. He was more about creating the business. And that's okay. How can you tell which coach you are? You can ask yourself these questions. 1. What can I not do? Coach A feels a calling, a vocation, a voice asking them to step forward in some direction. It feels like something they can't not do, and it often feels big scary. Next question. What would I do if I knew it would fail? Would fail. You heard that right. Which means what's worth doing even if it doesn't work out? I learned this question from Seth Godin, and it points to what's worth doing for its own sake, which means the process and the skills we learn are worth it, even if they don't take off. Last question. Would I do this for free? You'll often have to do it for free for a while. And that's fun. You get the fun. You have to enjoy doing that work for free because that's what's eventually going to bring the money to you. Notice the work is not about the money, just like road trips are not about visiting gas stations. However, you need both money and gas to keep going on your journey. If your answers to these questions now align with what you are currently doing, you are Coach A. You are my people. The frustrating part is there are so many coaches that have a pure desire or calling, yet Coach B's find faster success rather than making one right and one wrong. I'm interested in being in Coach A service with a Coach B business. If you're listening to this, I'm going to guess that you more so identify with Coach A. And I so appreciate that about you. And what's ironic is that the place that I feel most in pure service, most in Coach A, is actually something that has to do with business. I mean, this is the podcast that we're sharing now, but it's also in my Meraki Mastermind, which is a group that stewards meditation teachers and coaches through the lonely journey of starting and growing a business. So I hope what I share today is helpful for you to connect with. What energy are you in? And I want to also invite you if you do feel like you are needing support, to Coach A, that if you are looking for support to be around a group of coaches that are doing this work with love and connection and the fact that you might even do it for free. Meraki Mastermind is for you. It's for meditation teachers and wellness practitioners that are committed to this work. It's for Coach A's who can learn a little from Coach B's we have guest experts on a variety of business building topics, content creation, packaging, your offers, presentation skills, marketing, plus the accountability of others being in it like you. You've heard me talk about Meraki Mastermind on this podcast before and although doors come open and closed, you're always welcome to reach out and say hey Lou, you talked about that thing, Meraki Mastermind. I'm curious, put my name in the list for when it opens again. I'd love to hear some more information. So if that's you, it is going to open back up in April. But whenever you're listening to this, if you're feeling calling, if you feel like you are Coach A that could use a little bit more of that Coach B in your life and your work, please send me a message. Let me know that you're interested in Meraki Mastermind and I'd love to see if it's a good fit for you. Thank you so much. I hope reflecting on this help you get more clear around that pure place of service. It's okay to lean sometimes in those business opportunities. As my friend Darius Brassar says, sometimes we gotta do work for our bellies that we need to eat, we need to survive. And seeing a business opportunity, capitalizing on it is okay. And when we can mix the capitalizing on it and it's coming from the purer place, man, we can go so so far, so so far. So it's finding where that really connects, where that locks in. And you know I'm rooting for you on that journey. It's why this podcast exists. And I'll stop speaking for now. Reach out about the Mastermind if it calls to you and I will see you on the next episode. Take care. And before you take off, if you like this episode or like this podcast, please consider taking a moment to leave a review. It really helps the podcast grow. And if you are someone wanting to use meditation to share your gifts, I have a free course called Meditation Script Mastery. You can click the link in the podcast description and get you set up with learning how to create unique meditations that you can share with your students, your clients, and you can share with your friends. So thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time.