Ep 104: Coach vs. Mentor

You ever wonder what success actually means?

How do you get it?

And how do you keep it?

We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it.

Hi, Theresa and Blair here we are to badass entrepreneurs, best selling authors, coaches and business mentors who have had success, built success, questioned our own success and reclaimed it. Let's be real for a hot minute. 2020 has been a roller coaster ride, and many of us a start to wonder if the loser things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?

Can you put it in a box?

How can you get it?

Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?

Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?

From PGA golf pros to doctors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and spiritual mentors, we get together to meet with successful people from around the globe to dissect success for vibrant conversations and interviews. Make sure you click the subscribe button on the app store because each week we will drop a new episode to bust through the myths around success and dissect its true meaning.

Welcome back to another episode of dissecting success. It's me Blair Kaplan Venables, and I'm here with Theresa Lambert, the amazing, the fabulous, the tanned and glowing, Teresa. And you know, we had a really interesting conversation offline. And we decided, let's bring this conversation to you. Theresa is a business expert, I am a social media expert, and a publicity expert. And when we work with our clients, we coach our clients, we also do work with our clients and for our clients. So there is an element of coaching and mentoring from both of us. And we want to talk about the coaching space, and results. Because there's lots of conversations going on about different types of coaches and people's feelings about believing in certain types of coaching and not not supporting others. And I think it's really important for us to have this conversation about what it is to be in our sphere of coaching. So I think we should start kind of like maybe high level, talking about the different types of coaches that we're seeing online.

So yeah, I think that's it's such a juicy conversation. And I want to start I think by saying too, that this isn't about saying people are doing something wrong. I think it's just about everybody doing something different. So I just want to make sure that as we're having this conversation, everyone understands that. The point of it, I think, for us after we had this offline conversation was to share a little bit more with you know, what our viewpoint on it on it is how we love to work, why we'd love to work this way, why we support our clients the way we do, because that's important to us. But also some challenges that we see that have come in with, with some of these different styles or different expectations, almost that have been put out there that I think can make it difficult for some entrepreneurs to to get results to be quite honest. Or to create an idea of what's possible. And then it gets really frustrating when it's not working for you like that. Yeah. I didn't say that. Right. But like, it isn't about like saying right or wrong. I think that's the point I want to make. It's not about a right or wrong conversation. It's just different. And I think it's important. We have a conversation because there is some. Yeah, I feel like there's a shift in this industry. And so it's important to talk about it.

If you hear jingling in the background, it's my kitten. Oh, free has the zoomies. Yes, everyone I bought a kitten. His name is free, named after my mom. Okay. So I think like there's so many different things going on out there. And there's some coaches who teach certain things. And I just want to I think, like we should just high level talk about the way we work. And again, I don't want to knock anyone because I do believe there is a place for mindset and energy, sexual exploration, pleasure, and whatnot, and everyone has their own way of marketing and building their community. In fact, there's this movement online and it's like the anti coach calling out coaches. And it's just so interesting because it's a complete polar opposite, but the same type of thing and I you know, I follow accounts on both sides. And what's really cool is that there's like a bunch of coaches out there, business coaches or energy code just I don't even know how you would like describe them, who make millions who have such a loyal following, who've trained other coaches to also make millions. And, you know, there's coaches who train coaches, and that's just their job, there's coaches who train sales, and that's what their job is. And so there's a, there's a time and place for it all. And, and there's some things that I think, are hokey, maybe before we talk about us, I'll just talk about the things that like I don't like, I don't really believe in paying to be in someone's inner circle for the power of proximity. That's something I don't really believe in, if you want to come hang out with me and be in my circle. So you can learn in an up level, that's great. I would never charge someone just for, for just being around me. That to me is like I'm borderline of kind of culty behavior. And some of these coaches do build these cult like followings. And I think it's a very thin line. So something that really bothers me is when coaches are charging an exorbitant amount of money to be, you know, have people around them. So that's one thing that I want to make it very clear that Teresa and I do not do, we don't do it separately, we do not do that together. And the other thing is that we don't blame you for not being in alignment, if you don't get results. If we work with you and teach you about certain things, and you're not getting results, we actually just we look at it, and we work on it together. Because it's not about blame. You're working with us because you want to make more money. You're working with us because you want to be successful. You're working with us because you want to grow your business. And you know, this isn't a teacher student relationship. This is you're bringing us into your business. So we can help you up level and, you know, make multiple five figures a month. Right? So those are two things, I want to make it very clear that like we don't do and that I don't believe in, like I don't believe in blame. Now if if we say hey, you need to do X, Y and Z and then you don't on purpose. Like that's a different story. But if you're, you know, if you're taking what we're teaching you and you're implementing it, and we're not getting the results, we pivot. So I just want to make that clear, like obviously, like if we say, Hey, can you do XYZ? And you don't do XYZ? That's a that's an issue, not an issue me. So Theresa has anything else you want to add there about like any of your beliefs with the coaching space about setting up kind of what we do and don't do? Yeah, totally.

You know, I think that I believe in mentorship. I believe in coaching. Coaching is meant to be like true coaching is actually led by the client, and driven by the client. And your coach. As a coach, it's your responsibility to ask powerful questions, so that your client can be on a process of self exploration and find out their own answers. So coaching isn't advice and it's not teaching and it's not mentorship. I think I want to stop by saying that, okay, I think that that is something that is sort of gotten lost. And coaching is an unregulated industry. And because of it, a lot of people call themselves coaches that are really mentors or guides or consultants. I take a like MCs approach. I'm a strategist, I'm a consultant, I'm a coach, I'm an expert, really, that's how Blair introduced me to and I pull coaching and to help you on some of the mindset and energetic pieces. And I think for me, it's it's really one of those things where I have a very high sense of responsibility for my clients businesses, meaning when you invest with me, when you invest to come and have me come to be on your team, that's how I see it in your business and becomes my business too. So having you create having you enabling you and supporting you to be able to create results in your business is really important for me because I want you to know that a you investment is safe and be you're actually building something that's long term sustainable and that while I love long term mentorship doesn't real Have you rely on me to always be in your business which is part of the reason why I agree with you plaid, the whole invest so you are in my close proximity power situation does not land for me. It's bullshit. It's bullshit does not land for me. I also I also just feel like truth to me. I mean, this is my spiritual viewpoint you'll okay, this is how I see it. I believe in the universe. I believe that there's greater forces for me, I call it the light. Ultimately, I believe in oneness, and I believe in removing resistance and accepting that we all one, one soul, a part of one. And that means that it's about remembering who we are, and coming home back from within, and to understand that the source of our light and love and power, if you will, comes from within. So I am not a source of power for you, I might be an ignition for you to activate, light, power love that's within this is my belief. And I as such believe that my role here is to support you in the best possible way I can in your business, to help you implement structures, systems and processes and strategies, while working with you on the mindset and a belief that help you remember who you truly are. Use that to your advantage while giving you tools to share your gifts with the world that remind them of who they are. So together, we can really make a change. But I don't believe that when you hire me, just by being in my proximity, you magically are going to stop making money. I don't believe that I'm sorry. I just don't, because I think it creates an idea around saying, Oh, if I invest $50,000, in this coach, I'm automatically going to be making more money. And some people may experience that. Because putting $50,000 in which somebody puts a significant amount of skin in that game, and it might light a fire on the duras to actually do the things they got to do to be able to make the money that they want to make. And as a result of it, they see a result. But I don't believe that it is because you spent $50,000 And then magically you sat on your sofa and you spent the $50,000 and then you made $100,000 that month. Yeah, I think the big thing that I think has become almost like a clouded version of the real reality of the statement, statements that are being made. Yeah. Because when you are surrounded by people who are driven, ambitious, that do what you want to do 100% You're gonna feel moved and inspired to be moving with them and growing wisdom and showing that fuck up. That is what will grow your business.

Yeah,

why it's important to be with those people. But they aren't some like, secret power source that fuels you. You are the power source. It's you.

You just set it all and I love the passion that you had there. And like, Yes, I agree with everything you said, basically, you need to do the work. And there's a place for meditation and mindset and all that, you know, jazz in business, I wake up every day and I move my body and I have a candlelit bath, and I meditate and I journal and I do work on manifestation. But you can't just sit there and manifest you actually have to plant the seeds and do the work. You need to do the work and it needs to be ethical. Like some some coaching I guess cohorts to me seem very pyramid skinny. And you know, it's like their coaches who train coaches who will train coaches who will train coaches, etc. And that's not what I do. I'm a Social Media and Publicity expert. I'm a resilience expert. I teach you how to build a strategy and how to implement it so that you're seen as a thought leader. I'm not teaching you how to do what I do to become me. I'm not trying to I mean, I'm like if you want to become a Social Media and Publicity expert, I'll teach you. But that's not what I'm doing. And that's not what Teresa's doing. She is here as a strategic business coach. And together we we give your business the velocity, it needs to get momentum, the velocity it needs to get momentum because there's only so much that you can do on your own. And I know if you're on social media and you start looking up coaches and tips on tick tock or Facebook or Instagram and beyond, is overwhelming about how many people are claiming to be experts claiming to be coaches, who are sharing tips and information. And a lot of people in my world will come to me because they are overwhelmed with choice. They're overwhelmed with what to do because one professional says to do X, and one professional says to do Y and another one says to do Zed and No one knows what to do. So how do you know if a coach is right to work with you? First of all your gut, your gut is important. If your gut is saying like run for the hills, trust your gut. Intuition is really important. Our bodies know, to like if you have been following you know, someone who inspires you who does offer coaching, and you find yourself constantly saving their content, commenting, following, you know, going out of your way to find their content be on their email list, that's a that's a good sign. That's a sign that maybe you want to work with this person. And most coaches offer a complimentary call. So maybe reach out to that coach and see if you can have a quick discovery call and ask them questions at like, share what your goals are. So I think you know, what's also important is that there's two different ways to get into people's coaching worlds. And there's a lot of, a lot of times when you're newer to business, or you're newer to wanting to bring a coach in because you've plateaued. You're like where do I spend my time and energy, like there's so many, you know, courses and masterclasses and whatnot. But they're like, there's a plethora of free master classes out there. Heck, I'm taking a free class from Penn State University on resilience, there's tons of free education out there. And if you have coaches you love and you're not sure about, you know what it'd be like to work with them. And if they're offering a free workshop, like I have a free workshop, almost every month, Teresa offers complimentary masterclasses and workshops, here and there, and I know she's making a bit of a shift. But check them out, like attend the workshop and implement what you learned. And if you have it in you to show up, because showing up is half the battle, showing up taking what you learned and implementing it. And you do those things, and you're making use of the needle moves in your business. Those coaches are right for you. And then you can decide to spend money with them.

Yeah, I mean, it all comes down to trust, right? It all comes down to Trump's but I always say and I mean, I see people you know, who share incredible value, who are unknown, even through their social media. And yeah, Will that ever be the same type of mentorship and, and insights you're gonna get than if you're paying them to be in one of their programs? Or closer? mentorship? No, no, but you know, a lot of these people share what they share based on their experience and what they know. And you can implement some of those things. But I think this is the key word implement, you got to do the work, right? Like we're coming back to this, you got to do the work, it doesn't immediate metal, what you learn, it doesn't matter if you're a master manifester. Right, like if there was no action that moves you towards that what you want. Shearing coming in, you know, you still gotta chop wood and carry water. And I agree, I think sampling people's work. Getting an idea of what it's like to work with them is really, really important. And having conversations with people, right, like, hop into somebody's DM, if you have questions, chat with them and see what the vibe is like, right? Like I think it's really important to explore. And it's also important to understand that we all are looking for something different. Right? Like we all are looking for something different and different kinds of support at different stages of our business. And the thing is, sometimes we really need support on the mindset piece. Sometimes we really need support around that energy piece, and actually make sure that the way we're building our business feels good to us. The way we're building our businesses allows us to actually have the life that we want, right. And that requires you maybe to make changes in your business. And again, I do some of this mindset and energetic work because of it. Because when we make changes in our business around things that have worked for us in the past, or when we make changes in our business that cause us to have to play a bigger game and take bolder risks and make bold moves within our businesses to get to the next level, chances are you're going to find yourself hitting resistance, right. But this means you're in a business where this is about refining. You know, this is like you're already making money. You're already having things that are working, but this is about how can you get from making $80,000 a year to making $200,000 a year. This isn't about how can I get my first client anymore? You're far beyond that. So you require something different right? And I think this is the other piece that we often forget. Right? Is that? And I love actually, I think what I really appreciate is when coaches in our industry who make millions of dollars are clear about how many years they've worked or show how they've increased their revenue year over year, and what they used to do, so that people can see that a new in this industry that they didn't just wake up one day and made a million dollars this month.

Yes, nothing pisses me off more than when a coach is claiming, I'm going to help you make seven figures. And they've never made seven figures. And I will if there's people on my social media, who are proclaiming this, and I know they haven't, or like I know, who has, there's been a couple or have reached out, I'm like, Oh, that's so cool that you're offering this have you like how did you make your first million? i Oh, I haven't. Why would you learn from someone who hasn't done it?

Right? Well, you know, that's a good point. Oh, but then I build a business to eight figures without having done eight figures. So you earned eight figures. For the business. I did scale a business,

you scale the business that you worked for you, you know, like, you knew now you you know what to do, but they didn't hire you to say, did they hire you and say you need to take us to eight figures? Or was it that you know how to you you implemented stuff in the business? And that was the result?

Yeah, I mean, they hired me to, like, run the business and to grow the business. But I never run or grown a business. So they took a chance on me. But But my point is, do we have to have like, that is something where I'm like, can somebody is somebody great at sales, for example, right? Somebody is really great at sales, they're making a couple $100,000 a year, and your biggest problem is closing. If they can help you close your deals, that could lead you to make seven figures without them actually needing to make seven figures. So I have a slightly different like approach there. But I think this is the difference between coaching and mentorship.

And also, what's the difference in coaching? What's the difference? Like let's let's clarify what's the difference between what's a coach, and what's a mentor?

Okay, so a mentor would be somebody who has actually done what you want to do. A mentor is somebody who speaks from lived experience. So if you're hiring a business mentor, you're hiring somebody who does in business what you want to do. Okay? If you're hiring a coach, again, coaching, is not teaching, it is not mentorship, and it is not consulting, feel radically hiring a coach but everybody just fucking calls himself a coach is really about helping you see the changes you need to make in order to be able to build your business in order to be able to have the right mindset, like coaching is about them, helping you self realize and self actualize through the process of coaching. Different. So so this is I think, for me, like people get very confused. So it's important to have a conversation, consulting. That's different. Again, right? But so this is why like, I'm very clear. I'm not just a coach, I'm a strategist. And I'm really good at figuring out why you're not making any money. And what you can change because I see it, and your to your point where I've done it, and I've built somebody else's business to eight figures. But I don't make seven figures yet. But I still believe that I can help you make seven figures and you're

but you're on your way. Because in your second year of business, you made six figures where most people don't ever make that. So you are on your way. I mean, I'd be very surprised if you started your business in the first three years made seven figures that would be like an anomaly, but you know what to do and you're making the money and you help your clients by coaching them, but also strategizing with them on how to make the money.

Yeah, I don't just coach I strategize with you for you. I basically put my CEO hat on right, but different but I think anyways, it's interesting. We have We don't often have a completely different viewpoint on something that I agree with you I wouldn't hire a mentor who's not done what I want to

do. Yeah, exactly like so I guess. Like, that's where we we come into play because sometimes I call myself a coach, but really, I'm a mentor. I'm a mentor. And I don't strategize in business. I strategize specifically in communications in thought leadership. And that's why we work so well together. Especially because you have this view point where like, I'm kind of more loosey goosey. And like, I'll teach you, I'll help you. I'll do it with you. I'll do it for you. I'm gonna guide you. So you come up with your answer. So I kind of do it all. But really, I am a mentor. I am a mentor in social media, and publicity and resilience. So that's fun that we had just had that conversation. And, you know, what should we talk about what's happening on January the fourth?

I think so.

It's back. third year in a row. Velocity. It's a free three hour masterclass. Who's excited, I mean, we have so much fun with it, the links in the show notes to sign up. Basically, we spend three hours to give you a sampling of what it's like to work with us, we talked about how to create a simple business strategy for your business, how to incorporate tools to get your message out there and be more visible online, how to be a thought leader to establish yourself as an expert. And we don't just teach you we work together during it, and there are implementable actions that you take while you're there. And after that, you are going to see results because of the last two philosophy master classes, the students that came saw big results.

Yeah, you know, I think it's really powerful. Because again, right, like we are sharing things, as mentors based on our lived experience. And what we've seen works in business, and drives results, what we've seen work on social media and drives results, right, which ultimately all leads more clients to you, which allows you to build your business, right. So I think that this is something where you and I VB are more practical and tactical and strategic, through how we're teaching and also how we're growing our businesses while also being whoo enough to understand that there is greater forces that play, right like we it's not like we're not, you know, like the strategies I teach and even in velocity, how I share about building a business strategy and the business pieces that I tie in. I build business strategy around how you want to feel about your strengths and values. And it puts a very different spin on how you build a business strategy. And consequently, showing up feels energetically aligned. There is a que alignment word, which really means that you will show up for what you say that you do, which is more than half the battle I would say. So I'm excited about velocity coming back. And I can't wait to see what's happening. And I think last time we had like over 80 people who joined us, it was huge. So I'm excited for it to come back and see how many incredible entrepreneurs are hopping in now. But it's video for you. If you're if you're ready to hit go if you're ready to have clarity in your direction, if you're ready to know how you're going to map out your plan to six or multi six figures or fuck seven figures, right? Like, do you want to have a plan to get there? We are not saying that we you know we're in ignition for you. We will enable you and will support you with what we know through our own experience. Come join us it's gonna be epic.

We recently had a phone chat with me and my friend, we meet myself and I had a chat with a new friend. And she texted me and she said, Blair I love the way you make me feel when I talk to you. And I think like that's a little to toot my own horn that's a peacock because when people come and work with us or listen to our podcast, like how do you feel like come hang out with us be in our energy get inspired, and you know implement. So I think it's a good this is a good time to say. Click the link in the shownotes join us on January for Theresa and I are ready to give your business the velocity it needs to get momentum to make more money.

That's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to Blair Kaplan Venables and Theresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on