But first I wanted to share a little bit about what you can expect from the Coach with Clarity Podcast moving forward, and what you can expect from me as your host. Coach with Clarity is all about an aligned approach to the art of coaching, and when I talk about an aligned approach, there's really three things that I think of when it comes to alignment.

The first is finding the alignment or the balance between the art, or craft, of coaching, or how you show up and work with your clients and with yourself, and balancing that with the business side of coaching, or what it actually takes to create a sustainable, profitable and fulfilling business. Because as coaches, we need to do both. We need to show up and serve our clients powerfully. And we need to have a robust business to support the work that we do. So we are definitely looking at aligning the art AND the business of coaching. 

We're also looking at how we can align your existing experience personally and professionally with your move into the profession of coaching. Because most coaches I know don't start out as coaches, they start out as really successful professionals in another field. Maybe you're a therapist, maybe you're a photographer. Maybe you're a yoga teacher. Maybe you're an artist. You bring with you so much valuable wisdom, knowledge, and experience, and I want to help you leverage that into a successful coaching business because you don't have to start from square one. 

There are certainly some coaching skills and approaches that you can master, and that's what we're going to explore on the podcast. It's also what we explore in depth within the Coach with Clarity membership, but you do not have to say goodbye to all of the valuable training, education, knowledge, and experience that you bring with you from that first profession. In fact, I'm willing to bet that all of that is what's going to make you great as a coach, and so we'll be exploring that in even greater depth and how to align your past experience with your current passion for coaching on the podcast. 

And then finally, when I talk about an aligned approach to coaching, I am talking about finding a way of moving forward that is fully aligned, fully connected with what matters most to you, and helping you get really clear on your values. Your values are those core principles that you want to build your life and business around, as well as the vision that you have for your business and your life, and what that looks like in terms of the goals that you set for yourself. 

While all three of the things that I've talked about so far are important, I might say that this last one is the most important of all, because if your approach to coaching, if your approach to working with your clients and building your business, is not fully aligned with your values and your vision, then it may be successful, but it will not be fulfilling. And I believe, as coaches, we are capable of having both. We can create profitable, sustainable joy filled businesses where we serve our clients and we enrich our own lives all while creating a stronger, more positive impact on the world. That is the power of coaching, and that is what it means to be a Coach with Clarity.

So we'll be exploring all of that in future podcast episodes. And keep an eye on your podcast feed. Make sure you subscribe now to the Coach with Clarity Podcast, because you can expect a couple episodes showing up in early March.

Now, I thought I would also take a minute to share a little bit about my own story and journey as a coach and why I feel so passionately about helping other professionals transition into the field of coaching.

So before I entered the field of coaching, I was a therapist. I got my Masters in Social Work and in Public Health back in 2003, and I spent almost 15 years working with people in mental health settings. I did a lot of work with active duty airmen and their families within the Air Force. I also worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs and did a lot of work with veterans who were working through post traumatic stress disorder. 

It was while I was at the VA that I completed a six month traineeship in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT for short act, a mindfulness based cognitive therapy approach. So I anchored my therapeutic work in ACT, and now as a coach, I certainly rely on my training as an ACT provider when I'm working with clients and when I'm doing my own self coaching. More on that in a little bit. 

Anyway, it was 2015. And my husband and I decided that it was time for him to separate from the Air Force, where he had served as a periodontist for over 12 years, and we were going to move back to the States. We had just wrapped up an assignment in Germany and he was buying a dental practice in our new hometown. 

It was such an interesting experience as both his spouse, his partner, and also as a clinically-trained social worker. Because my husband is an outstanding clinician, but no one had ever taught him how to run a business. And really most of us who have been through a professional or graduate level program, we are taught how to do our craft, but we're not taught how to run a business to support it. 

And so I started seeing not just in my husband, but in other professionals, this tension that occurred between feeling incredibly competent and strong in the work that they do, but yet feeling like they were doing something wrong because they didn't understand the business side.

I started seeing all of these mindset issues creep up and, because of my training in ACT, I knew that I was uniquely equipped to support professionals who were experiencing mindset issues within their business. But I also knew that therapy wasn't necessarily the right approach or the right format to use with them.

And so as I did some research, I realized that the field of coaching was going to be the best way for me to serve this population. And so that's when I enrolled in a coach training program. I received my certification. I'm accredited as a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation, and I started my coaching practice helping other professionals get clear on how they want to show up in their business, how to connect their business values with their personal values, and what action steps they needed to take in order to achieve their business goals, but also their personal ones as well. 

Now, the more that I started working with professionals in this way, and I worked with a lot of therapists, actually probably because of my background, the more people began to ask me, how did you do this, Lee? How did you transition into coaching? What does that look like? I realized that many of my clients were themselves interested in transitioning into the profession of coaching and using their existing skill set to serve other people in this new way. 

And that's when I started small group programs and the Coach with Clarity Membership in order to provide solid coach training that honors your experience, honors your values ,and allows you to develop a coaching approach that works best for you and for your clients. 

So that's the nutshell version of my coaching journey and why I feel so passionate about supporting other professionals as they enter the field of coaching and doing so in a way that honors not only their experience and their training, but also their intuition and their wisdom.

Because I believe in the marriage of inner wisdom with external data. When we have both of those, that's really where we not just create success, but we thrive. 

We're going to discuss this and more in future episodes of the Coach with Clarity Podcast, so if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and get ready. Because in early March, we are coming back with some brand new episodes and we're going to dive deep into what coaching is and what it takes to be a successful coach. 

Now, if you want to get a jumpstart on that, head over to coachingquiz.com, where you can take a two minute quiz that helps you identify your unique coaching strengths and maybe some pitfalls or obstacles that you'll want to watch out for as well.

So be sure to head to coachingquiz.com to take the quiz, and keep an eye on your podcast feed, because come early March, there will be some brand new episodes of the show waiting for you. Again, my name is Lee Chaix McDonough and I'm encouraging you to get out there and Coach with Clarity.