Finding Joy In The Work

Speaker 0:00

Really, I felt just a lot of joy in the work. I'm really filled with gratitude for the opportunity to have that next chance at the next thing and to move towards the sweet spot for myself. You know, to honor that part of me that, you know, I always felt like I was somebody who could love going to work. And I realized that early in my career. And there were times when I felt more of that or less of that. But certainly moving into teaching and coaching. That was it was on steroids for me.

Speaker 1 0:32

Hi, I'm Beki. Welcome to Short Story Long. In this podcast, we discuss ways you can integrate who you are into how you lead. I'd like to welcome my guest today, Shahnaz Brochek. Shahnaz is the founder and chief coach of Optimize You and the co-founder of Coacheko, a platform dedicated to advancing coaching excellence through supervision, community, and reflective practice. With more than 30 years of leadership experience, she works as an executive coach and culture strategist with senior leaders across higher education, healthcare, manufacturing, consulting, and nonprofit organizations. She previously served as chief leadership coach and culture development officer for 3,500 employee organizations and also taught coaching and mentoring at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. Janaz, it is a great pleasure to have a chance to talk with you today. You have so many stories to share, and I'm thrilled to have you share one of them with us today. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1:37

Thank you, Packy. I've really been looking forward to this.

Speaker 1 1:40

Me too. I know that there have been so many different kinds of transitions that you have gone through in your career. And you and I have had a chance to talk about those in the past. And what I'd love to do is just ask you to give like the little bite-sized version of what was that inflection point that we'll be talking about today.

Speaker 2:02

Yeah, thank you. I, you know, I think my career path has been nothing if not a lot of starts and stops and reimagining what's possible. And for many years, I owned a mortgage and title company. We grew to about 55 employees. We went through the wild west of the mortgage industry when things were just really booming for a while and we could barely keep up, couldn't hire enough people. And then we went through the housing crisis in 08, 09. And during that time, I really started to ask myself, you know, is it crazy for my husband and I to be in the same business that is so cyclical? Or would it make sense to start thinking about what I really wanted to do? And I had been kind of quietly wanting to pivot for a number of years at that point. I was really interested in everything related to culture. We did a lot of sort of internal experimenting at our company, creating a recognition committee and other work where we were trying to really help create a great place to work for our employees. And in that process, I just found myself more and more drawn to thinking about culture and leadership development. So I think the great uh, you know, sometimes there are happy accidents. And one of the happy accidents in my life was when the industry crashed and it gave me permission to actually go back to school. I ended up applying. I think I was telling you, I made the decision one night that I was interested in applying to the University of Michigan, talked with my husband about it, and a few hours later I had actually completed the application online. Decided take action now. Yes. Yeah, I was like, this is so urgent and important and meaningful for me. Um, so so that's what happened. And I was really fortunate that I guess I didn't have a blemishless undergraduate experience. And so I was really fortunate that I had the opportunity to return and uh get an MBA.

Speaker 1 4:10

Yeah, yeah. I relate to you on that whole there is no blemish-free transcript from university experience, right? And then kind of crossing your fingers and sending in that application. And, you know, you kind of just going back in time before this transition happened. You you talked there about you had owned this mortgage company, especially during the Wild West. And I'm imagining there must have been some pretty big adventures and things that were happening at that time. What do you think happened for you that started to have you shifting toward maybe this isn't my thing anymore?

Speaker 4:50

Yeah, I think that when we first opened the company, I had so much to learn. I had been working in another mortgage company as a business development manager, and I did a lot of sales, uh, sales training and did a lot of HR consulting. We were building a franchise. There was just a lot of different business responsibilities that I held in that prior company. But when I went out on my own and, you know, put my shingle up for the first time, um, with I think it was like $25,000 that I needed to have to start the business back then, which is just crazy to think about today. Right. Um, but at that time, you know, it was a it was a really challenging transition because I had never even written a loan. So I I knew how to hire salespeople. I could hire loan officers. I'd been a recruiter and I understood a lot of being around the business, but I completely felt like an imposter with that part of it. And so I spent several years really trying to develop the expertise in the industry, learning about loan programs and you know, everything under the sun from you know, all different types of loan programs. And uh so I learned a lot. And learning is one of my one of it's actually my number one Gallup's Clifton strengths.

Speaker 1 6:17

So that does not surprise me for a second, I have to say. Yes, yes.

Speaker 6:22

Right, right. So that kept me engaged for several years. But I did kind of reach a point where that learning slowed down and I felt like it had become somewhat more routine, even though there were changes that would come. But the nature of the business for me had started to feel just a little bit more stale.

Pivoting With Intention

Speaker 1 6:41

Yeah. And and you'd mentioned there that it was happening for a while. And I don't know that I've heard many people say that, you know, it was a happy accident that the long crisis occurred, which I think is amazing because it's about perspective, isn't it? It's it's it's not to say that I'm so happy it happened. It's that if it had to happen, it was at a time where you were already in this reflective process of I'm not sure this is where I need to be. And yet you'd grown this organization from I don't know how to write alone to 55 people working for you. That makes it a little bit different to say, you know what, I think I'll change direction and I'll try something new. One of the key things that it makes me think about is you were talking about how you you get these messages, right? Of this isn't, this isn't really my time to be doing this anymore. This is time to make a shift. And one of the key things that I I hear you saying here is uh there's an intentionality and there's a there's a wisdom in sitting back and saying, am I running from something or am I running to something? And if I'm running from something, I need to get a little bit more intentional about the direction that I choose to go.

Speaker 8:11

I you know what I I appreciate you calling that out because I think when you were saying it, yes, I I completely agree with that. And I think what it is is not just it's not pivoting in a space of noise towards what do I need to go do? Because I gotta get out of this freaking crisis of the mortgage industry. But it's who am I now? What what's getting clearer about my own value proposition? What's getting clearer about what might make sense for me and just being really curious about that instead of feeling like oh I better yeah, I better go find the next steady job that can help me pay the bills for a while, you know. And I think and sadly, I think a lot of people do end up feeling that pressure. That's very real, it's very respectable to do the honorable thing and take care of your family and do what it takes. And and we've all been there too. But I think for me, over time, I've been able to hold that truth for myself about who am I really and what makes sense. And and listen to other people, right? Not have to figure it all up for myself, but engage other people in reflection, whether it's other coaches. I hire coaches all the time. I'm not just selling my coaching services, I'm getting coached.

Speaker 1 9:49

Because when we're running, or and it doesn't need to be running, if we're shifting as a consequence of fear, concern, something that's repelling us from what we're doing, yeah, then it's a different sort of connection because we don't see the same magnetism with the thing that would be drawing us. So we might get drawn to something that actually is kind of jumping from the pan into the fire kind of scenario.

Speaker 10:14

And you know, I I feel I'm gonna count my blessings on that one because I feel like there are times when I would have perhaps taken a job, something I had applied for and didn't get. And in the end, these other opportunities came up for me that were such a better fit for me, even if I ultimately did move on from them, even if I eventually outgrew it and there was something else that was calling me. But there are things that I applied for that didn't happen. And I'm just as lucky that I didn't take those as I am that I got to do the things I did.

Speaker 1 10:51

Absolutely. And there are times that I remember one, I it feels like it was just, I don't know what happened that embedded this so deeply into my memory bank. But I was offered a role. And I said, I don't think I want to do that. There's something about this that doesn't feel right. And I had a little bit of, but why not? What are you, what are you thinking? Why wouldn't you do this? And I was like, Yeah, you know, I just don't, I'm not bot, I'm not feeling it. I don't, I can't articulate why. And the person who ended up being in that role was exceptionally unhappy in that role for reasons that I later went, yes, because it's tied to this thing that was said that I didn't give enough weight to. And so sometimes we have to trust that intuition, in addition to what I heard you describing, which is, hey, there's this thing where if you didn't get something, that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. It means that that wasn't the right thing for you at that point in time. And it's okay. There's something else that's coming.

Speaker 11:54

Right. And not to then, and not to then aim lower, not to then pull back or shrink from it, but instead to inspire the curiosity about what is this actually calling for forth from me?

Speaker 1 12:07

Right.

Speaker 12:07

And that always ends up being better.

Speaker 1 12:09

When you sat down to have that conversation with your husband, how were you feeling in that moment about revealing how you were thinking?

Speaker 12:19

For the two of us, it was it was a conversation that unfolded over several months. And we had another business that we had planned on launching. We were on the uh retail side of lending and we wanted to move into wholesale. And with all of the changes that were happening, uh it it the plan that we had ended up not being able to happen.

Speaker 1 12:43

Okay.

Speaker 12:44

And so when that time of pivot occurred, uh, where we recognized that business model was not going to move forward, and we were thinking about do we want to do a joint venture with someone or how what do we want this to look like? The first step in the progression was that we did a joint venture with another company. And while that was happening, I went back to school and got my MBA. So I actually was working full-time and um and in school full-time with three kids, which I still sometimes wonder how I survived all of that. But it was, it was both exhilarating and exhausting.

Speaker 1 13:21

I would imagine that really took a lot of discipline in terms of recognizing who you needed to be in a moment. And as you were facing different circumstances, this is the project for my MBA. This is me playing a leadership role within my business and a leadership role within my family, and really recognizing that each one had a responsibility and a weight to it that you wanted to carry, it sounds like. And when you made that transition into U of M and clearly they accepted your application submitted at midnight, right? What were you imagining your next steps would be at that point in time?

Speaker 14:08

Initially, I had been thinking about my desire to be able to do more research and to teach. I was really interested in becoming a professor. I thought that getting an MBA would be one degree on my way to getting a PhD. So I can even remember when I was first in the program, um, you know, we had career coaching that was available to us. And I would go out of curiosity to see what they were talking about. And I would have these really nice conversations with Lisa Morgan, who I I know you know as well. Lisa and I would have these nice little sidebar chats, and I would say, yeah, I think all of this is wonderful. And I'm gonna go get a PhD when I'm done with this. So it doesn't quite apply to me. Little did I know that that would not be the case. But um yeah, initially I thought I would be, it would be sending me on a further academic path. Both of my parents were teachers, and uh my dad was a professor at Central, my mother was ABD in botany, and uh and so you know, education was really important in my family growing up.

Speaker 1 15:19

Well, and clearly to you as an adult as well, recognizing that that degree was going to be important for you to achieve your goal and then that PhD going forward. So you didn't get the PhD, and yet you also were an instructor, a professor at the U of M. So part of that story did actually come true. So as you left the MBA program and you were kind of going through that recognition process of, you know, maybe not a PhD. I remember it must be a thing maybe with MBA that I remember when I was kind of completing my MBA, there was one class, it was like decision analysis, that I just was like, this is magic. This is just amazing. And one of my professors had said to me, you know, hey, there's this PhD thing and and everything. And I was like, oh, that's really exciting. And I spoke to a friend of mine, she looked at me like I was insane and said, Why, why would you do that? You don't you don't like to study, you don't like to do those things. What are you thinking? And so there's always that that opportunity of what's that next thing? Because it creates this space in our lives to think, I've completed this thing, I've completed this degree. It's now time for me to think about what goes forward. How much of what you imagined you'd be doing as you finished that program is actually part of your life today, would you say?

Grief And Life Is Short

Speaker 16:57

There's definitely a piece of it related to teaching and researching that I definitely do all of the time, right? Whatever my work is. So that's always a part of it. Um it's different than what I would have been doing if I had gone and gotten a PhD, but it's also incredibly fulfilling. And I I think probably more fulfilling for me than the other path would have been. I mean, I again, I think it's another happy accident, right? That that that didn't quite happen. My mother was diagnosed with leukemia when I was in the program in Michigan, and she died two months afterwards. And when that happened, I recognized truly, maybe in a in a more personal way, more deeply than I had ever recognized before, that life really is short. And you were talking earlier about you know, trying to juggle these different hats. I don't know that I did that exceptionally well. I was wanting to do them very well, but it was really, really hard. And so I think that in the end being able to not get a PhD was actually a blessing in disguise. Um I had never considered becoming a coach before that decision not to get a PhD happened. But when that decision had been made, right? Once I once I had kind of said, okay, I I don't think I'm gonna do that anymore. So now what am I gonna do? At that point, I started working with Lisa Morgan, a career coach at Michigan. And one of the things that I did was to do some informational interviews and ask people, you know, what do you see in me? People who knew me well, what do you think I might be good at? And I was surprised at the number of people who kept telling me they thought maybe I should look into executive coaching. I had never considered it before, and candidly, I didn't want to start another business at that point. That wasn't what I that wasn't the dream I had for myself.

unknown 19:06

Right.

Speaker 1 19:08

Yeah, right. I mean, you you had already started something like that and grown it into something. And so it it does actually make a lot of sense that you would be in a place of wow, wouldn't it just be nice to work for someone else for a while and let them carry that part of the weight? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 19:29

Yeah, and that that is how I felt in the beginning. Until I didn't.

Speaker 2 19:34

Until I didn't. Until I didn't.

Discovering Executive Coaching

Speaker 19:37

But I did end up deciding to uh, you know, to go get certified as a coach. I did the program through the Institute for Professional Excellence and Coaching. And that was just life-changing for me. Once I went that first weekend, it was like, oh, I found my people. This is me.

Coaching Yourself Through Imposter Syndrome

Speaker 1 19:56

Yes, there's a there's a settling in and just like recognizing that there is a a presence of people who are around you who may not always think like you, but they're always open to sharing their way of thinking and listening and and trying to deeply understand yours. And and there's something about being in a community like that. And it actually makes me think about a point that you made earlier as well, when you were talking about, you know, I was carrying all of these responsibilities, but I don't know that I did it so well. Yeah. And it it I'm wondering, you know, as a as a coach now, thinking about being back in that moment and recognizing that you were really spinning all of these plates and doing all of these things all of the time. If you were in a position where you were coaching your former self, what is it that you would be saying or asking of you during that MBA program to maybe help you see that you were doing the best that you could?

Speaker 21:04

I think to fully answer that, I'd I'd probably want some time to really unpack it. But my initial thought is that I would ask myself what's going to matter the most in the long run? What do you want to value in this time? And I I think it would have really helped me to have been working with a coach full time at that point myself. There were so many things that were going on. And so when I I on the one hand, the fact that I did that without a coach gives me sensitivity now to understanding when someone else has all of those plates spinning, you know, how how beneficial it is that they actually are working with a coach. Um but I think it's it's really trying to help feel that sense of. Calm, build that sense of confidence. You know, I think I I think I still struggled, even though I was like, yeah, I got into the University of Michigan. I that, you know, good old imposter syndrome was chasing me still.

Speaker 2 22:12

Yeah.

Family Expectations And Authentic Choices

Speaker 1 22:13

Yeah. How did I get here? And and how do I keep my seat? And I I remember and I've spoken to a couple of my um classmates since uh graduation. In fact, one classmate, I hadn't seen her in like 20 years, and we reconnected and we were talking about how both of us were sitting there on that orientation day thinking, was there a computer glitch? Because like, how am I here? And it's just so interesting how many people are sitting in those orientations. And it might be orientation to graduate program, it could be orientation to a job. It could be somebody gets promoted and they're in that role and they're thinking, is this really what I thought I wanted? And and so it there are all of these kinds of moments that we step off the ledge into something that we don't really understand what we stepped into because we never really know what we've stepped into. Right. And for you, your perspective looking back is these are happy accidents. These are these opportunities where I was able to see now is the time for me to take this step. What is it that you think made you embrace the idea of I'm going to be a professor and I'm going to be an executive coach, and this is who I am right now?

Speaker 23:41

I think for me, growing up, I my my dad's from India and my mother was a farm girl from Illinois. And in my father's culture that he grew up with, you know, there were there was a short list of professions to be considered that were on the table. I could be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a professor. Like the this was sort of a short list of acceptable paths in my household growing up. And um, I think people typically could see in me that I was someone who led with a high degree of empathy. And um, and so what what would you think, Beki, what would be the path for someone with high empathy and those potential paths? What what one would you think I was pegged for?

Speaker 1 24:27

You know, I I I want to say physician. And at the same time, I think that would be that would be a really hard role to play when you have high empathy because people coming in to see you are constantly in pain. So high empathy would be useful and also very difficult to carry. And I feel like that might be where you were kind of slotted in.

Speaker 24:54

Yes, yes, very perceptive of you and not surprising that you could peg that. Um and and I was just never going to be a doctor. That was just not my calling. But I think having that sort of pressure to go in a certain direction and you know, maybe overly directed early on, I hadn't really taken time to figure out who I was before I was in college. And that made those years particularly challenging because I was sort of anchored to a direction that didn't feel authentic for me. So I think that has helped me in life. Once I, once I got past that, right, once I started choosing for myself, and it came after college for me. It didn't really come in college.

Speaker 1 25:44

I can appreciate that. And in fact, it the way that I'm I'm hearing you describe that, what it makes me think about is it's such an evolutionary process where you discover a few things about yourself while you're in college, and then you're working for a while, and you start a business, you grow the business, and you're still learning about yourself. And then, you know, hey, how about I go get an MBA? Right. And and so each level opens a new flap in that envelope that is you. And you you get to then keep on discovering who you are. And it makes me wonder a little bit about as you moved into coaching and as you moved into being a professor at the University of Michigan, I'm wondering what were some of the things that you noticed about yourself as you stepped more fully into that role, which I believe is probably very aligned with who you are.

Speaker 26:48

Yeah, I think what I noticed was how much energy I had, how connected I felt to the people that I was working with, how purposeful the work felt. It's not that it was easy. I still worked, you know, really, really hard. Um there was a lot for me to learn. I was kind of back into the deep end of the ocean trying to find, you know, trying to find air.

Speaker 1 27:15

My learning curve has to be steep, or I'm just not satisfied and happy. Yeah, I can appreciate that.

Speaker 27:20

Yeah, let me bury myself first and then try to figure it out. Um, I I you know, I've I've always thought, oh, it'd be nice to have shortcutted that in some way, but it it doesn't seem to be my pattern somehow. You know. Um but I think I think really I felt just a lot of joy in the work. Really filled with gratitude for the opportunity to have that next chance at the next thing and to move towards the sweet spot for myself, you know, to honor that part of me that you know I I always felt like I was somebody who could love going to work. And I realized that early in my career. And there were times when I felt more of that or less of that, but but certainly moving into teaching and coaching, I was it was uh on steroids for me.

Trust The Voice That Warns You

Speaker 1 28:13

Yeah, and and one of the things that that stands out in that is is actually even how you talk about that. There's there's just a joy in the reflection of the it's like your heart opened up a whole new level, and you had an opportunity to do the work, learn the things, and also see those things that were happening blossom and grow in front of you when when you think about you know other people coming to you, not in a coaching capacity, because I know you wouldn't give them advice in that capacity. So let's take it as more of a mentoring and supporting kind of structure. What is the advice that you would give to someone when they're saying, I I just need to figure this out. There's something that's wrong with the path that I'm on. What's the advice that you would give a friend in that kind of scenario?

Speaker 29:09

I think what I might do is just encourage them to listen to that voice, like to trust it. You know, what would happen if you were to trust that voice right now? What do you think it it's trying to tell you? Right? Trying to just get clearer on what's that message really all about. What what hit me really this whole journey has been one of sense making for the purpose of sharing. That's what coaching and teaching are for me.

Speaker 1 29:40

And when you say sense making there, tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that.

Speaker 29:45

I think when you work with clients, as you know, you find common ground with them. They've been in places that you've been on the edges of or you've been in the heat of, or there's something that helps connect you to them. And so I think for me, when I'm doing that work with a client, I have, you know, I can tap into all of that scaffolding in my own brain, into that wiring that I have from those past experiences. And it helps me to see it more objectively, understand differently, empathize with myself, empathize with them, you know, just think more at a systems level about, oh, this is just part of the human experience. This is so normal, right? Things that we tend to judge and think, oh, isn't that unfortunate? No, it's like, oh, this is just like normal stuff that humans deal with. What could make it a little bit easier right now? What's the way of thinking about it that would help? What if you think to yourself, this is happening for me, not to me? Those kinds of shifts can can make a big difference.

Speaker 1 30:53

Yes, and that and that really sounds a little bit like whether it's you for yourself or whether it's people around you, clients uh uh included, it's these things are happening. And I kind of hear the sense making in that of how is it that we either normalize this? You are not the only one who has gone this path, you too shall survive, right? And and and probably even find a way to thrive if if you really lean into it. The the other aspect of that is okay, maybe this isn't what happens to everyone else. Maybe this one, this one is unique to you, and you get to go on your own special journey. And what then does that mean to you? What do you choose for that to mean for you? And then all of a sudden, it creates this path forward where people can kind of embrace what's happening, even if it's the ugly parts of life and the difficult and challenging things, where we started on a path that maybe we didn't choose, and maybe we didn't feel really aligned with it. And then, like you said in your story, it becomes right, but that's a starting point. That's not the end. What we do is we start to reveal in those moments and make sense of where we are so that we can design what we want to do going forward. And I love that you're highlighting that as part of your journey forward, because I think that that's such a common experience. Talk about, you know, many people go through this. You know, who we think, like 17 or 18 years old, trying to decide what's my career for life. I was so unprepared to make any choice along that line. And yet everything that I was learning at that point in time was preparing me to make sense of my life going forward. Right.

Speaker 32:56

Right. Yeah, I think so often we do feel like you know, we're alone in the journey and we don't recognize how common what we're going through really is. And uh I found it to be incredibly beneficial and healing to be a coach, both in the work for the client and honestly for myself. There's a there's that side of it that was really an unexpected gift.

Speaker 1 33:26

Well, one of the things that is truly, I believe, powerful about coaching is that there's always a learning curve with it. Yeah. And that's both as the coach, but also being the one who is coached. There are all these layers to ourselves that if we're just sitting there by ourselves contemplating, we'll never get to. But then you have a coach that offers, they may or may not have meant it as a zinger question, but it lands as a zinger question. And you're like, oh, now I have to think about who I am and how I function again, and I have to learn something new about myself. Yay. And that's such an opportunity for for any of us as we're going through. And so when you think about yourself in the coaching that you're doing and and the way that you approach that work today, what's the growth edge? What's the piece of it that you're constantly developing for yourself?

Speaker 34:23

What I've become really passionate about is thinking about the profession of coaching and thinking about the future of the profession. I really believe that every organization would benefit from having coaching, whether it's internal or external, but the skills that we bring to the work environment, I think, are needed more than ever. We're in a place of just relentless change from AI to global changes, economic changes, I mean, all kinds of constant change that people are facing that impact businesses and and people, whatever they're doing. Right. And so I'm I'm just a passionate believer in the importance of bringing coaching into all of these different environments to help bring forward the best thinking that we can do and to help people collaborate better. So I do a lot of work as a team coach today. The sweet spot for me in the coaching work is really sticking with the system of the organization, so often with the senior leaders on the team, both individually and uh and as a team. And I've taken that interest um to to be sort of a student of that process in the direction of supervision. So moving into coach supervision training with Claire Beckett McEnroy, uh, which has just been really life-changing and I'm I'm in the thick of it right now that I'm working on getting uh getting credentialed as a as a supervisor where I would be able to help provide that kind of support to other coaches. Um and uh and also working on my MCC. So to me, one of the things I love about our profession um is that this learning is just never ending. There's always more to learn, there's more to develop, there's a richness to it in the journey that's really uh, you know, has really inspired me since the beginning.

Speaker 1 36:31

Yeah, and and just for our listeners to to understand what she means, but the MCC, there's three levels within the ICF, the International Coaching Federation's level of credentialing, where there's A for associate level, uh, P for professional level, and M as a master level of credentialing. And it's an intense process to go through in order to receive that credential, which, you know, best to you as you pursue that. And one of the things that I hear as you describe what you're doing now, it reinforces this belief that I know I have, that everything that we have experienced and learned in the past, we have an opportunity to weave that into the fabric of where we are right now. And so many of the things that I hear you talking about are going back to those heart-based things that you had mentioned before. Really that idea of culture and the experimentation that you did within your mortgage practice and being able to do some of those things and really looking at it from that full and holistic perspective of, but if I tweak over here, what's happening over there and making sure that all of that is intentional. So it's really creating that design and that system. And at the same time, the other one that I hear is that that word sense making that that you had brought up before, which is it just needs to make sense. And then we'll go forward from there. And sometimes, you know, some of the economic things, some of the social things, some of the AI things, AI tells me things. I'm like, where did that even come from? Right. And it isn't to say that it does make sense. What we do and what I hear you describing is how do we make sense of our response to those external factors that are happening? And that's so much what people and organizations need right now and how fulfilling that can really be.

Why Coaches Need Community

Speaker 38:38

Yeah. And I think the thing is, like the work that we do as coaches is very rewarding. And it's also it can be very emotional, it can be very draining in some ways, and it can also just be a place of finding things that you're unfamiliar with and needing to resource yourself, right? And so I became really passionate about this idea of building a coach community several years ago, and and finally in this last year, it was something that I was able to bring to life. And we launched a business. My my partner, co-founder, uh Katie Drusher and I launched Coach Echo in January with the intention of helping to better resource coaches, create a platform where coaches can share resources with each other and learn from each other, get supervision, you know, and just have access to a whole lot more than we can do on our own. Our industry is just wrought with a lot of single shingles of small business owners out there trying to make a go of it. And while I find that highly respectable and beautiful, you know, the fact that so many people can just start a business on their own and and make a go of it. Um it's really hard to gain economies of scale with that. It's hard to have access to things like health insurance benefits or other, you know, other benefits that people need. And so, you know, the idea behind this business is to help build the kind of scale and platform where we can start to offer those kinds of things to people and keep the best part of independence that we all want in our work.

Speaker 1 40:26

Absolutely. And and there is a a real need, I think, where you know, you have different communities that are created that can support you. And this is entrepreneurship, I believe, e whether it's coaching, which we're talking about here, but also in other areas where it's I'm in my head, I need to get outside of my head, and it's as a business owner. Because when you're running a coaching practice, you're doing the coaching, but you also have to be the entrepreneur and the business owner. And just because I put a shingle out doesn't necessarily mean that I feel masterful in all of these capabilities that are necessary for running and operating a business. And that can be very lonely, very challenging, and a little bit undermining because if if you're feeling like you can't do one, then it really cuts away at your confidence and some of the other things. And so having a community like Tocheco is really powerful and helpful for the people who are kind of drawn into that. And I'm I'm wishing you, of course, all the best of success in that. And I'm wondering, is there anything else that we haven't talked about or any questions that you would want to explore in our conversation today?

The Mastermind Group That Helped

Speaker 41:48

Yeah, gosh, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I feel like we've covered a lot of ground, Beki. We could probably talk for days on lots of topics. Um, I think, you know, one thing that stands out to me that we didn't share at the top of the call that I I think might be fun to just revisit is our own connection. You know, that we actually came together at a point in our careers when we were both kind of launching, pivoting from other professional work into doing the work of coaches. And um I'm just so grateful for that time that we had, you know, early on where we had this small group of coaches, we would meet once a month, we would rotate the agenda, we would really help each other, right? And um I think all of us became more successful as a result of that. And um and so I really just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for being part of that community with me and the other coaches and and for everything that that you contributed and and for truly what you're trying to do in in this platform here on the podcast.

Speaker 1 42:58

Yeah, and and and thank you as well. And and thinking back to that time, I think there were six or eight of us who would get together on essentially a monthly basis. And it was kind of a mastermind in a sense, you know, what's going on? Here's this exercise I want to try. Um, and and really an opportunity to test a couple of ideas or say, hey, I think this would be really helpful for the group for us to be able to bring this in. Yeah. And it really gave us the chance to really localize it and personalize it in a sense. I was an absolutely newly minted coach when I showed up for those meetings the first time, and at the same time felt incredibly welcomed by people who'd been doing it for a lot longer. And there wasn't any, well, you know, I have the experience, you should listen to me. It was really a very collaborative and mutually supportive kind of environment that. I would hope for anyone. And I think the the biggest learning that I took away from those experiences, in addition to the knowledge and honestly the depth of the relationships, was how important it is if you don't have that community to find and develop that community. And I love that you're doing it with Kochako on a more formalized basis. And I think that no matter what your profession is, and whether you're an entrepreneur or if you're in a place where you're in a corporate role, but you're feeling like, wow, this feels messy. And being able to identify some other people to say, yes, yes, I think it might be a little bit messy, but here's how we can move forward. And these are my experiences. And that discussion can be such a rich thing to have, whether they're people within your company, outside your company, like the list doesn't matter as much as that connection does. And I don't know that I've been in a group like that group since that time. And so, you know, I I know you were part of kind of organizing those, and I really appreciated that time together. So much like I very much appreciated our time to have this conversation today, Shana. So much fun to reconnect, have this conversation, and quite frankly, learn a little bit more about you beyond what I knew before. So thank you for coming to the show.

How To Connect And Share

Speaker 45:24

Thank you, Beki. This was wonderful. I enjoyed the conversation.

Speaker 1 45:28

If you have interest in connecting and learning more about today's guest, check out the show notes for ways to connect and follow up. Thanks for listening. If you found this episode helpful, share it with someone who could benefit from it. Until next time, I'm Beki Fraser, reminding you to integrate who you are with how you lead. Okay, bye!