The coaching space is an unregulated industry so it’s not like getting a therapist or getting a doctor where they have to go to years and years of school it’s kind of like a wild west out here in the coaching world, to be honest. So that means the quality and the experience that you get from different coaches can vary drastically and anytime that you are investing in something I know that can kind of be scary. That’s like taking a leap of faith and you should be getting a fair return on your investment you should be getting more in return than you’re investing.

Hello, my friends and welcome to the Fit To Lead Podcast. The question is how can badass women leaders lose stubborn fat, feel amazing in their clothes and never say no to bikinis again. All without giving up the Fast and Furious lifestyle that they work so hard for? That is the question and this podcast is the answer. I’m your host Natalie Hayes online fitness coach, US Army captain, and formally overweight healthy eater. Because I’ve struggled with weight my entire life. I’ve lived through just about every face you can imagine, from running every day and emptying my wallet on organic food to Bikini competitions and having tucks all but chained to my wrist to trying to lose weight while traveling around the world on army orders. The difference between me and every other coach is I understand that different phases of life require different fitness approaches. I’m so passionate about helping women feel their best that I’ve spent the past decade learning everything there is to know about permanent weight loss in women leaders, the information on this podcast is going to give you the tools you need to lose the weight you’ve always wanted without feeling hungry, helpless or alone in this process. This podcast is going to help you feel connected to other remarkable leaders and reassure you that your fitness and life goals are indeed possible for you. It’s time to get after the body and life of your dreams and put so much on the line that your neck self is forced to come out.

What’s up crew today we’re talking about how to vet and invest in the right coach for you. Now, why is this a topic that I want to talk about that I’m passionate about? The truth is the coaching space is an unregulated industry. So it’s not like getting a therapist or getting a doctor where they have to go to years and years of school. It’s kind of like the wild west out here in the coaching world, to be honest. So that means the quality and the experience that you get from different coaches can vary drastically. And anytime that you are investing in something I know that can kind of be scary. That’s like taking a leap of faith and you should be getting a fair return on your investment, you should be getting more in return than you’re investing. And since this is my space, and I spend all day in the fitness coaching world, and I’ve had quite a few different experiences with my own coaches, both fitness and business coaches, I feel like I’m coming to you guys from a perspective of experience and knowledge on this.

So we’re gonna go over how to know if you need a coach and the different types of coaches there are, I’m going to share with you some areas where I’ve had coaches and my experiences, what to look for in a good coach, especially one that that is gonna get you the results that you’re looking for, and how to know if you should fire your coach or just move on to a different program. So I just counted on my hand because I honestly wasn’t sure. And over the years since 2015, I have had five fitness coaches, and they’ve all served a purpose for different seasons that I was in, whether that was fat loss, competition, prep, reversing out of competition prep, or just getting my health and hormones healthy. So I definitely learned a thing or two about fitness coaching from both a coach being that I’ve coached hundreds of women through their weight loss journey, and I’ve been on the receiving end of this.

So the first question would be how do I know if I need a coach or if I should hire a coach? And again, this can be for something, not even just fitness. I’ve also hired business coaches, there are life coaches out there relationship coaches, and there are plenty of different things you could hire a coach for to help you. So how do you know if that’s something that you should do? Ask yourself? Is this something that’s important to me and that I want to achieve? And do I want to do it in a timely manner because let is honest, information is free? Google is free. Anyone can Google workouts anyone can Google healthy food anyone can google how to grow a business but then that will kind of lead you into this tornado of trial and error and you could probably get to your end goal eventually. But doing it that way might take you 10 years. So you have to ask yourself, Am I okay with this taking 10 years and doing trial and error trial and error trial and error over and over and over again? Will I not tire of that? And is it such a low value to me that I value All of this time over the investment that I could make in a coach, another really great way to look at this is this problem that you have that you want to be solved, whether it’s fitness, whether it’s business, whether it’s relationships, life coaching, whatever problem you want to get solved, let’s just say for this is you want to lose 50 pounds, if there was a pill that you could take to just eliminate the 50 pounds, that doesn’t exist. By the way, I’m not suggesting that. But let’s just say in this magical land, if there was a pill you could take to just make the 50 pounds melt away, right now, how much would you pay for the pill to solve this problem? So if you have something that you want to achieve, it’s important to you, maybe you fail that trial and error before, or maybe you just want to avoid trial and error altogether. And you want to achieve this in a timely manner. That is kind of all signs pointing to it’s time to hire a coach, let’s get an expert in here to speed up this process. For me, someone who’s already done this for themselves, someone who’s already done this for others. And let’s just let them kind of show me the way to the success of the thing that I want to achieve.

So now that you know if you should hire a coach or not, I want to go over the kind of some examples of effective coaching versus non-effective coaching. And again, I’ve been around the block with this. So I’ve experienced both and done a lot of research and my own coaching, investment, and a lot of programs on how to make myself a better coach with business coaching and just mentorship coaching.

With that said, there are a couple of different I’m going to go over kind of the less effective types of coaching that maybe you have experienced in the past, if you’ve experienced any of these in the past, let me know because I can definitely relate. So there are different levels to coaching. So one would be just kind of like an accountability partner, or an accountability monitor, where they just kind of give you the plan. And they check in with you, you know, once a week or something like that, just to like, make sure you’re following the plan. And if you’re not following it, all they do is tell you to get back on the plan. That would be like an accountability monitor countability Cotu would be a cheerleader, someone who checks in with you and just kind of like, lets you know that you can do it and just cheer you on and offers you that support that maybe you don’t have, again, kind of a shallow way to go about coaching, but they certainly exist. Number three would be kind of like an advice giver. So they’re not necessarily like asking you questions about your life, or what would work for you. But they’re just kind of telling you what worked for them or what worked for previous clients, and kind of suggesting that you change your life or kind of white knuckle your way to follow this advice, whatever that may be. Those are kind of all three examples of shallow coaching, in my opinion, coaching that is just kind of like a cookie cutter.

So but what I do is completely different. So I look at myself as a transformational coach. So I don’t just tell you what to do. I think all good coaches don’t just tell you what to do, but they ask you transformational questions. So with these questions, what they’re going to do is help you see your blind spots, and help you arrive at the destination of your next steps to create buy-in from you and empower you to be in control of your own results and your own destiny. So I’m going to tell a story to kind of tell you exactly what I mean by that. But here’s the thing, knowledge, workout plans, and macros are all free guys, it’s all free. Just go to Google, there are plenty of macro calculators out there, and there are plenty of free workout plans out there. So that is not what a good coach should be in the business of doing just providing you some macros, providing you workouts, and then saying, Here you go, I’ll check in with you on a week.

So coaching is not just telling somebody what to do. Most women that come to me already know how to track macros. But here’s the thing, it’s still not working for them. And that’s what we need to get to the bottom of. So it’s not the knowledge that holds most women back from losing weight, it’s themselves. Everyone has their own blind spots that they can’t see right now. Those the things that are stopping most women from being successful with weight loss are their own self-sabotage, and their own blind spots, things that they can’t see as to why it’s not working. A lot of times it’s a mindset thing. It could be a habitual thing. But as a coach, it’s my job to ask really transformative and thought-provoking questions. To help you get to the bottom of why this hasn’t worked for you so far and work together as a team to create a program and to create a shift that will allow you to shift into the next level of your life where weight loss and fitness health come easier for you. This is especially relevant if you’re a woman who finds yourself starting and stopping different programs, or different diets, maybe you try something for three or four weeks, and then it just never sticks and you’re always quitting. So most women think it’s more discipline. It’s more white-knuckling. It’s more I just got to be harder on myself. I just gotta like put my head down and get through it when actually that’s not it at all. fitness and weight loss should not be that difficult. It shouldn’t like take you out of your life and just make you feel like you can’t participate in the most fun things of your life. What’s actually keeping you stuck in these blind spots that you can’t see? And as a coach, it’s my job to point those out to you. It’s kind of like if you’re at dinner, and you have a little piece of spinach stuck in, you’re stuck in your teeth, you would never know that you had that stuck in your teeth. And that was your problem.

So that’s my kind of how I see coaching as it’s a coach’s job to come alongside you and say, Hey, girlfriend, there’s this little thing, we’re gonna work on that even if you can’t see it. So if the coach is just pointing out problems to you that you already know, that’s not really the deep work that is going to make transformational change in you and in your lifestyle. So that to me was a definition of a good coach versus a more shallow coach. So now I want to go into what to look for, in a coach kind of before you hire them. Let’s say you have an idea of this person, maybe you want to work with them, but you’re not really sure.

Here are some things you can do to vet them before you even really like get on the phone and start talking. So firstly, you want to look has the coach has gotten results for either themselves or results for other people. Now, these are drastically different things. There’s not to say that a coach who hasn’t gone through a transformation themselves can’t be effective. But you definitely want to look for a coach that has gotten results for other people who may be similar to you and may have a similar lifestyle to you. So look at who that coach primarily works with and see if you can kind of see yourself in some of their client testimonials. For example, if the coach mainly works with, you know, male bodybuilders or so and you are a busy working woman, maybe you’re a mom, and you only have, you know, 20 minutes a day to work out, maybe that wouldn’t be the best fit for you. So take a look at the results that they’ve gotten for other people and just see if you can relate to those people here at Fit to lead. I work with a lot of moms, a lot of working women, and a lot of military women to help them lose weight sustainably.

Another thing I would look for is this program, promising a quick result or a sustainable result, I would be aware of any program or anything that promises to help you lose, you know, 30 pounds as fast as possible. Because here’s my thing, and I think all good coaches would agree that I don’t care how fast you lose 30 pounds. If you gain it all back, that will do nothing for you, Sr, and I bet you’ve been there before. If you’re listening to this podcast, I bet you’ve lost some weight before and maybe gained it back or more. And ask yourself how did that work for me last time, not just in the short term, but in the long term? A year later, is that weight still gone? I would ask myself those questions. So I would be aware again of anyone who is promising a fast result over a sustainable and healthy result. Another thing you want to look for is whether are you going to get one-on-one attention from this coach. Or is everyone on the same workout plan and just kind of gets a set of macros? That again is a form of a cookie-cutter plan. And I’m sure you don’t have the same time equipment or goals as the next girl in the program. So I would check if am I going to be getting one-on-one support to ensure that I hit my goals and the time that I want to. The next thing I would look for is honestly just personality. Do you jive with this person? Do you like their personality, I would listen to their podcast, and follow them on Instagram. If you haven’t followed me, I’m at fit to lead dot inc, the whole word is typed out. So go follow me over there and see if we would get along. So I know that I am probably not a good fit for everyone. And I’m so okay with that. So if you don’t jive with me, there are plenty of other good coaches out there that I could recommend if you’re looking for one but I would just take some this is a great time, the social media age in certain ways because you can really do a solid vetting process before you even get on the phone with this person, I would look at their platform, whether that’s Instagram or their website or their podcast and see again, do I like this person do we get along Do I like their worldviews what I want to have a call with this person every week and kind of have them lead me through my goals as well as looking at their client results. So just take a look, spend some time with that person, and see if you’d get along with them. And then finally, kind of going back to what I said before about the blind spots as you just want to make sure that your coach that you’re looking into is truly a transformational long-term coach that is going to address those self-sabotage blind spots that I mentioned earlier. So if you think of fitness kind of like a weed or maybe you can think of like your extra weight your bad habits as a weed kind of growing in a garden before I bet you’ve just kind of like cut off the top of the weed and it goes down for a little bit but it always grows back those habits are still there. Those negative thoughts are kind of self-sabotaging habits and thoughts are still there so the weed grows back. That’s probably why you’re listening to this because you have this weed and you want to get rid of it. But a good coach is going to dig up the root of that weed with you and walk that walk with you and help you change your mindset teach you the things you need to know and address those habits and that self-sabotage that you’ve been experiencing. So you just want to make sure that your coach has a plan to really get to the root of your issue and not just chop off the top of the weed if that makes sense.

Now, I just want to tell you guys about the coaches that I’ve invested in over the years and kind of why I believe in coaching, and why I know this is such a great place to put my energy and put my money. So as I told you, I’ve invested in like five fitness coaches in the past seven years or so I’ve almost nearly always had a fitness coach. And I’ve also invested in business coaching heavily over the past year, and this has all been to help me achieve a goal that A is important to me, and I want to do in a timely manner. And I know that an investment in myself always pays off and an investment into myself is going to pay off more than an investment into honest stocks real estate crypto certainly into a car or material things because the stock market or the real estate market is fickle. I can’t control that. But investing in myself is the only place where I know I will see a huge return on my money. As long as I show up at work because I am the ultimate money-making machine. Right, I am the ultimate or the results-making machine. So I know if I get my body in tip-top shape, and I’m feeling super confident every day, man am I gonna show up differently in my business in my job at work my job in the army if I feel competent, and like on top of the world, and I know I look good and feel good. I’m gonna go after more opportunities in the army 100% I’m gonna go after more opportunities in my business, I’m gonna like sign up for more networking things and be more like amazing people in this space. So I know if I have my mind right in my body, right that is gonna provide like triple X or significant return on investment for me because again, I create my reality, not the stock market, not real estate, nothing else. And the same thing with my business coaching is this has provided me more of a return on my investment than anything else possibly could have no matter what the market did. So that is why I will always have coaches. And I will always believe in coaches because I know investment in myself always pays off. So I challenge you to kind of think of your mindset that way and bet on yourself if you haven’t already. Now I want to go over how to know if you should fire your coach or switch programs or get a new one or kind of whatever you want to call it and move on.

So firstly, you want to look at the results or the value that you’re receiving from this program. So if you are no longer kind of seeing the results that you’re looking for, and you haven’t reached your goal, firstly, you want to ask yourself a few questions. Ask yourself, am I meeting my responsibilities? Am I clear on what my responsibilities are in this program? And am I fulfilling those? And no matter what the answer is to that question, you’re going to want to have a conversation with your coach about this. Because this should be something that they’re helping you work through and kind of understand why you’re not meeting those responsibilities, whatever that may be. So let’s say you aren’t meeting their responsibilities, definitely have a conversation with your coach about that. And they should be able to help you through that if you are meeting your responsibilities, or your coach isn’t able to help you work through kind of the why and kind of get to the root, of why you’re not showing up fully in this program, then maybe it is time to seek a new program. Or maybe you’ve kind of get everything out of this program that you can at this time. And that’s okay.

The second thing you want to ask is, are they aligned with you and your goals? If someone is just again, kind of being that advice giver, being that cheerleader, that accountability, monitoring, just giving you a plan and saying, have fun, I’ll be here to cheer you on that really isn’t getting you that transformational experience, that you’re probably paying for it to be honest. So you want to ask Are they aligned with you and where do you want to see your life? Go? And are you guys both on the same page? If not, maybe it’s time to have a conversation with them. Or maybe it’s ready to move on to something else? Are you honestly ready to just do something else? Have you reached your goal and you’re ready to you know, pursue something completely different that could mean it’s time to move on from your coach? And ultimately you just want to ask yourself, Am I still receiving value from the coaching whether that is in moving you along towards your goal in education and community? Whatever that may be. Am I still receiving value from this? Is it still improving my life and keeping me on the path toward the goals that I want to receive? And am I enjoying the process too? That’s a big one. Does this just feel right? Is this something I can do long-term? And am I continuing to learn and evolve in this journey? If you’ve made it this far, and you are interested in that holistic transformational coaching the fit-to-lead metabolic reboot system works with women to do exactly that. I help women lose unwanted weight so they never feel uncomfortable in their clothes. Again, I want all women to feel amazing when they look in the mirror, and I never want you to gain that weight back again. So we currently have two spots open and the metabolic reboot system for our summer roster.

So if you are looking again for that holistic transformational code, and you’re curious if this could be a good fit for you just go ahead and fill out the application in the show notes for a free strategy call. So this is completely free. It’s just a chance for us to talk to see if we Jive like I said, to see if your goals aligned with kind of where I can take you in my expertise. And just to see again, if we would be a good fit. So if this sparked your interest at all, go ahead and fill out that link so we can get on the phone and just talk about your next steps. Thank you so much for spending some time with me guys. We’ll talk soon. Hey, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I understand time is your most valuable resource. So I’m so grateful you spent some time with me today. If you are a woman who’s looking to lose some fat, and get in better shape, there are three ways that I can help you absolutely for free today. Number one is I’d love to gift you my free ebook. This ebook is called the guide to losing your first 10 pounds and it gives you everything you need to know to just take the first couple steps towards your weight loss journey. And you can get the whole thing at Felipe ink.com. The second way I’d love to help you for free is to gift you three fat-blasting recipes per week. These are going to be easy simple recipes you can make for the whole family that is going to taste great and allow you to reach your fat loss goals. So you can find those in our fit-to-lead community. The link will be in the show notes. And not only that, but you’ll find like-minded women in this group who you can share your wins and struggles with along this journey.

Additionally, I go live in this group often to help answer any questions you may have. So it’s a completely free group. Again, join us at the link below for three free recipes a week. And the third way is simply to leave a rating and review on this podcast. The more five-star ratings and positive reviews we get on this podcast, the more helpful guests I can get on which will help you guys increase your knowledge and be able to lose weight that much faster.

Additionally, I’m doing a giveaway at the end of every month. So at the end of every month, I’m picking two winners who have left reviews and ratings on the podcast and gifting them a $25 Starbucks gift card honestly, not many people are leaving reviews and ratings right now so it could be the easiest cup of coffee you ever get. So please go ahead leave me a five-star rating and review and I appreciate you so much and we’ll talk to you soon.

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