Tina is a TedX Speaker and Co-Founder of High Performing Coach. As head of client care and training and development, she has been featured in Forbes, Global Women’s Magazine, and Thrive Global. Her vision is that personal development and coaching become as indispensable as electricity and wi-fi in every family, business and workplace. She is on a mission to help coaches develop unshakeable belief in themselves to make that impact in the world.
FWM: What are the words that changed your life?
There were 3 phrases that stand out the most to me. One was “What you believe you become.” I heard that at a seminar when I was an educator and it opened up my mind to the infinite possibilities available to me. The other one that was mind blowing was, “We don’t have bad days. We have bad moments that we turn into bad days.” When I heard this I had the realization that we can shift our thoughts and change any outcome. These words helped me to get back in the driver seat of my life and take back the power I was giving away with my thoughts. The most life changing words happened during a breakthrough call with my first coach. She asked me, “Do you want to be a teacher or a coach? Choose.” I never believed that I could choose my life. I thought that I already chose my life’s path. I went to school. I got my education to be a teacher and that was how the story would end. Teach- get married- have kids-save for retirement- live life- enjoy life after retirement and then die. It was a pretty simple plan and her words had me imagining a life of design. I was letting go of “What should be” for what could be. 6 weeks later I quit my comfortable job with security and the plan and paved the way for a new life. It was scary AF but worth the temporary fear.
FWM: Like many coaches you were frustrated; overwhelmed and doubted if you were cut out to grow the business you wanted. What happened?
For three years I did what the industry said I should be doing. I had a fancy website; an SEO team; the funnels; the business cards and ebooks. I even had a TedX talk and speaking gigs under my belt with the fancy graphics, logo and professional photos to back up the credibility factor and I also had NO Clients. I wasn’t generating revenue to pay for all the things that I thought I needed. I felt like a failure. I was starting to believe that everyone was successful except me. I remember the straw that broke was a day in the summer after I had just finished 3 solid months of creating content for my signature program and I was working with a team to design a funnel system with all the graphics. I was so excited that after three years of “building my business” that I would have all these clients lined up to work with me. I pressed go and NOTHING crickets. My funnel team then told me that they needed $5000 to test the market. “Test the market?” At this point I had already spent $60 K and only made 10K. I was broke. In debt and frustrated. And then they fired me. I didn’t just feel like a failure, I believed I was a failure. I felt embarrassed and more importantly I felt like a fraud. It was the lowest I felt in the three years. I looked at the time I lost with my daughters while I was grinding and building and I thought, “This is impossible.” I had a pity party and a crying festival in my kitchen for about an hour and then dried up my tears and thought, “Ok what now? I burned the boats. I have to figure this out.” It was only then that I reached out to a coach.
FWM: How did you create $120,000 in 5 months?
The simplest answer was I had a breakthrough. In one powerful conversation I realized that I was actually hiding behind my posts. I was hiding behind the funnel systems and ebooks. I was afraid of showing up on camera. I was afraid of judgement and what people thought. I was afraid of being exposed as a fraud. I also saw that this deep seeded fear came from being bullied in 7th grade. It was an unconscious blocker that left me paralyzed to show up as my brand. My coach asked me, “If you were no longer willing to tolerate being stuck in your fear and judgments, who would you be online and in your business? I said, “Powerful, unconstrained and unleashed.” From that moment, I knew no conversations meant no business and I had conversations that mattered to others. I made what I do about my potential clients and their fears and helped them show up powerfully. I had to lead the way. I was scared shitless every day, but I took bold actions. One bold action was to Emcee at a large women’s conference. The morning of the conference I was crawling out of my skin with fear and self-doubts and then I remembered that it was an opportunity to be powerful, unconstrained and unleashed and I gave it my all that day. Although I was a coach, I never shared that on stage but who I was being that day led to multiple conversations and $50K in business revenue. I was building rapport, respect and relationships without realizing it. I was deeply connected with people and they wanted to work with me. That boosted my confidence and then I just repeated that way of being daily by giving value to people and sharing myself. My business was connecting with people and through that I created group programs, private clients and $120 K in revenue.
FWM: “If you think email marketing and funnels are the only way to grow your coaching business-think again! Explain.
Funnels and emails are second stage business strategies. They don’t build relationships. People want real connection. They want to know, like and trust the person who they hire to work with because at the end of the day it is that trust that is key. Once you have an online authority and you have genuine connections with people and credibility, then we use the email and funnels to leverage that authority. In the beginning the name of the game is conversations- real life ones. With real humans. I joke about this all the time because it is one thing we do as coaches yet somehow, we are afraid to initiate these conversations. We load up on stories about what people will think, or how they will feel and we play out scenarios in our head and then get stuck. The truth is we don’t know how people will think or feel until we take action and start talking to people. It’s a simple conversation and it’s not easy. We must be able to check in with our thoughts and challenge our beliefs. Most of the time we can’t do this on our own.
FWM: How are you helping coaches to make an impact in the world?
I believe that business is 80% mindset and 20% strategy, yet most programs are selling 80% strategy and 20% mindset/ coaching. I help coaches play and win the inner game so they can master the outer game. I help coaches create profound breakthroughs in their life so they can cause breakthroughs in other’s lives. My vision is that one day personal development, coaching and therapy will be indispensable and as essential as wi-fi and electricity in every family, office and school. My mission is to help coaches see what’s hiding from their view and uncover the mental roadblocks they put in their way so that they can have the courage to apply the strategies that make them purpose driven entrepreneurs and not just passionate coaches. Coaches need coaches and I want to give back what was given so freely to me- breakthroughs.
