You're probably here because you want to know, how can I build a successful
and profitable life coaching practice? I've got you.
Life coaching has become so popular in recent years and I think that there's a lot of reasons
for that but it's also something that requires some clarity about seven specific areas that
I'm inviting you to think about here today. Let's get into those seven. I'm Dr Paul Jenkins, I'm a
professional psychologist. I am fully licensed and credentialed to do everything the psychologists do
and I currently practice only life coaching, professional development coaching, family
and relationship coaching. Now, I've gone to the coaching end for a lot of reasons. There's a lot of
people in the mental health industry who realize that there's more. Think about your mental health
for a minute on a spectrum or a continuum and clear over on the left end is the sick end. That's
where we have diagnosis, pathology, treatment, all of those fun things are over here and that's where I
hung out for the first 15 years or so of my career. Well, what's on the other end of that spectrum? This
is what gets me excited and to understand that end of the spectrum let's go to the middle first
that's health. You know you'd think that health is the opposite of sick, right? But
I'm just putting it in the middle meaning not sick. Like with your physical health you
could be sick in bed with a fever, throwing up. There comes a time when you can get out of bed
and you're not sick but that doesn't mean you're truly fit thriving, prospering. That's
at this other end of the spectrum and for me as a professional psychologist
I can treat people on the second of the spectrum. I did it for about 15 years in my
traditional psychotherapy practice and as my clients got better and got out of bed where
they no longer had an active diagnosis the insurance companies all pulled the plugs and
said, "Oh, thank you, we're done", I knew and my clients knew that there's more to life than simply getting
out of bed. The same principles that allow us to help people on this end of the spectrum
can be applied to people on this end of the spectrum to create and live a life that you love.
That's what lights me up. That's my why. What's your why? I also found as a professional that there is
an underserved population right here in the middle. These folks are not sick enough to go sign up for
therapy and unfortunately, psychotherapy sounds a little like therapy for psychos. I think that's
so unfortunate because the principles that we have learned in our clinical work can certainly be
applied on this end of the spectrum but we have to take away some of the taboos. That's what I
love about coaching. So, we're going to apply those principles to overcome whatever issues we all are
dealing with but our goal is to get as far that way as we can. What's your why and how clear are
you about your why? Hey, as we go through all seven of these clarities I want to give you a tool. So if
you can open this on your computer while you're watching the video just hit pause long enough to
pull this up drpauljenkins.com/practitionerquiz. What you're going to find there is a little
assessment that covers all seven of these clarities and as we go through them just give
yourself a little rating you'll see how it works once you open it up, drpauljenkins.com/practitioner
quiz and just follow along as we're doing the video. I think you're going to discover some
things about yourself and where you are in this process. So, mark the assessment as to where you
are how clear are you about your why, that's item number one. Let's go to number two, this is the who.
Who do you serve? Now, if you're like a lot of helping professionals you just want to help
everybody, right? That's where I was for a long time and honestly I still struggle with that
a little bit because I really want to help everybody. But if you want to help everybody
you don't have enough Clarity to help the people that you can truly serve. So, let's get clear about
who our tribe is. Who can we serve the best? How clear are you about that? Who are they? What do
they look like? Where do they live? What's their socioeconomic status? What's their gender? What's
their age? Get clear about who it is that you can best serve. One of my recently certified positivity
practitioners that came through our program serves nursing mothers specifically, okay. That's not my
tribe that's her tribe. You see how specific that is and these are not just moms these are the ones
who have little infants who are still nursing, okay. So, how clear can you get about who it is
that you want to serve? I just share that with you as an example, how clear are you about your
who? Now on the survey that's item number two. So go look at how clear you think you are about your who
and mark that survey. We'll just walk through each of these. Alright, let's go to number three, what?
Meaning, what is it that you have to offer? Do you have programs? Do you have models? Do you have a
course? Do you have a coaching package? What is it that you have to offer? I want to call back
to one of my podcast guests Scott Halford who talks and writes a lot about brain functioning
and he pointed out to me while he was on my mic the models are more powerful than ideas. I've
kind of had a feeling for this as a professional psychologist and through my career I've tried to
develop visual models that help people actually see the concepts that we're talking about in our
discussions. Models are more powerful than ideas. Can you take whatever it is that you're doing to
help people and reduce it to something that can be visually represented in a model. I also have done
a lot of coaching with speakers and influencers and one of the common things that they have to
offer part of the what is a book or a course. Do you have a book in you? Do you have a course? Now,
think about wherever you are with that and go to the survey. The third item there has to do with
clarity about your what, what do you have to offer and how can you structure that for the clients? The
who that we talked about in item number two. The number four is one that trips people up a lot, how.
How am I going to offer my services? How am I going to market what I do? For a lot of coaches that are
starting out this is the one that stops them. In fact, I had another guest on my podcast who said
it's the start that stops us. Can you relate to that? Because if you're thinking so hard about how
you're going to do this and you haven't figured it out yet it can be kind of paralyzing. I recently
read a book by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy called "Who Not How", think about that for a minute, who not
not how. The solution to any problem that you're facing right now and setting up your practice
is a conversational way. There are people on the planet who have been there and done that, who know
things that you don't know yet and I love the way that Hardy and Sullivan said in that book.
If you can retrain your mind to start thinking about who do I need to connect with rather than
how can I do this? It's going to open up a lot of doors. One of my coaches has been Verl Workman
a brilliant trainer and speaker in the real estate industry and as Verl was coaching me
one day he said, "Paul, you gotta quit thinking about how am I gonna do all of this stuff
and start thinking about how am I going to get this stuff done", do you hear the difference?
Instead of how am I going to do it, how am I going to get it done? Meaning who not how. Who
can I invite into my space or into my mind or into my workplace that has a solution for this
particular problem. That's the how, okay. How clear are you on your how? Go to the survey
mark that item. That's number four on the list and let's move on to number five, when.
Is this the right time for me? There are two things that I want you to consider when you think about
the when of your services. There are reasons and seasons. Now, all too often our reasons become
excuses. It usually sounds like, "Well, I would love to do that but", and then your brain hands you like
five or six different reasons why this is going to be hard or difficult or impossible. It's not
impossible. I saw an email once where the signature line says, "Those who say something is impossible
should get out of the way of those of us who are doing it", I love that confidence. All you need is
one good reason to do what you think you've been called to do, what your purpose is. Remember number
one was why. The first thing you need to get clear about. So, go back to that for a minute, why are you
doing this and really are we willing to let those five reasons become excuses and stop us from doing
what it's our purpose to do here on the planet? That not only cheats you but it cheats everyone
you could serve, all of the who from number two. Let's get out of our own way. The reasons now let
me talk about seasons, there are seasons in our life. I remember one of our practitioners in our
last certification course was pregnant. She was waiting for her baby to arrive and she wanted
to get this training and certification in before her baby came because she knew that she would be
entering into a season of her life where she wouldn't be doing a lot of coaching. She loves
coaching. She's been trained and certifie.d I think through the life coach school with Brooke Castile
this is part of what she wants to do with her life and she's going through a season where she gets to
pay a little more attention to her home life and her baby. Do you hear the difference I'm making
here between reasons and seasons? So, let's look at your reasons, what are we going to do with that?
Handle the considerations. It's always going to cost you something at a very minimum your time and
effort but often your money to move forward and go to that level that you really are capable of
doing. So, handle the considerations on the reason side and on the season side honor the seasons of
your life. There's nothing that says you have to put off things that are more important in order
to do this, in fact, that would be a big mistake. You never trade down you always trade up, okay.
So, if you're going to do something else besides what you feel called to do right now and it's
not because of an excuse. Honor the seasons of your life and acknowledge that this for me right now in
this season is more important like our colleague that I told you about who is awaiting her baby.
Okay, so go to the survey and mark your level of clarity on when, how clear are you about your
when? Now let's go to number six, this one's a little easier it's where but we can't ignore it.
Where are you going to serve your clients? Most of the work that I do right now is virtual. I've got a
zoom office, I hold webinars, I do group coaching on a zoom platform. That's where I serve most of my
clients. Now I still have a few come into the office and I reserve a few spots for my VIP
clients where I actually get in the same space with them, I'll get on planes for these people.
Where are you going to serve your clients? Just think that through. If you had to serve or coach
or assist someone today where would you do that? Go to the survey, mark your level of clarity about
your where. Now, I've got one more I saved this one to last for a couple of reasons. It's probably the
least interesting to talk about but it's also one of the most important ones. There are ethics and
limitations to what you can do. Now, I shared with you earlier I'm a professional psychologist. I went
to school to get my PhD in Clinical Psychology through an accredited university and then I went
through the task the arduous task of becoming licensed to provide psychological services. That's
quite a process. I can't make you a psychologist. You have to go to school and get your license to
do that. I can certify you and train you in models of positive psychology that you can use in your
life coaching practice and that's part of what I'm offering. Once you fill out that quiz you'll
see where you are in that process and I can help you through the programs that I'm doing to become
a certified positivity practitioner. Now, there are limits to that because as a certified positivity
practitioner you can't do brain surgery, you can't do dentistry, you can't do plumbing. Now, unless
you're licensed in those particular fields but you see what I'm getting at? There are limits to
what you can do as a coach and I know people who have gotten into a lot of trouble for practicing
without a license, practicing what? Practicing therapy for example which is a licensed activity.
So, you've got to be clear about the ethics and the limitations. Here's another one, a lot
of people want to go out there and use someone else's materials without their permission. That's
not cool. It's called piracy really and plagiarism. I'm offering a license through the certification
that I provide to use my models in your practice but that's because I'm offering it and you engage
with me in a way that allows me to certify you and license you in that in the use of those materials .
See, that's an exception to the rule of not using other people's material. do not steal someone
else's story. Do not take their models and use them as if they're your own. See ,this has to do with the
ethics and limitations around what you can do. How clear are you about that? Go to the survey
that's the last one on the list, how clear are you about the ethics and limitations? Now, what are you
going to do with that survey? On the next page you'll give me your contact information. Only do
that if you trust me, okay. If you don't then don't click submit. But if you trust me to help you
in this journey give me your contact information, click submit and you will get immediate results.
It will tell you what level you're on compared to other people who've taken the survey and what
some of the next steps might be for you. You'll also have a chance there to engage with my team
if you want to have a private strategy call about how to take this to the next level. I
gotcha, just follow the form to get there. Thanks for listening today. If you can think of somebody
else who could use this information would you pass it along to them. I hope to see you again soon.