Pathfinder Series: A Taste of Coaching in the California Wine Country
My new column, Pathfinders, looks at NBC-HWCs who are paving the way to career success through the lens of our evidence-supported coaching skillset.
I’ve been wanting to launch a new feature called “Pathfinders” for a while.
A pathfinder is defined as someone “who discovers or shows others the path or way,” something I think we’re all looking for as we navigate the journey of starting and growing our health coaching careers.
A couple of weekends ago, I took a trip down the road to the SoCal wine country where instead of tasting wine, I got a nice taste of wellness and found the perfect fit for my inaugural post, Monserrat Garcia, NBC-HWC.
Read on where I share how Montserrat is leaning in to the skill of “engagement” and showing us how to make authentic, in-person connections to grow our health coaching careers.
We’ve all heard the marketing advice that sounds more like a plug for a travel agency,
Sell the destination, not the journey.
Little did I know I would see that sage advice in action when I decided to strike out on a beautiful autumn Saturday morning to visit Monserrat Garcia, a NBC-HWC I met through my role as a T&D manager.
I saw her friendly post on LinkedIn inviting people to stop by and see her at the 14th Annual Temecula Health and Community Resource Fair, and I thought, “Why not?” I knew I’d catch some great coaching in action.
Not Your Average Health Fair
Maybe it’s a California thing, but as I strolled the avenue of resource booths and offerings looking for Montserrat, I noticed all the usual suspects including health education booths, biometric screenings, risk assessments, and non-profits sharing their missions and asking for support.
I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged though, to see and feel something very different going on—engagement! From a fun “Mission Impossible” themed car show, to tai chi, yoga, and mindfulness activities, to a petting zoo, which in the landscape of mental health and wellbeing, takes on a whole new meaning—the message seemed to be, “Wellness can be fun, hop off the sidelines and give it a try!”
A Broader Definition of “Engagement”
When I came upon Monserrat’s pop up, it was obvious she got the memo. Her booth design and warm, inviting smile felt like an invitation to come closer and find out what her business was all about.
Engagement is the first “task” of motivational interviewing (MI), described by Miller and Rollnick in Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change, 3rd Edition, as “the process of establishing a mutually trusting and respectful helping relationship.” (p. 40)
On a broader scale, it can be argued that “engagement” is what we need to both grow and sustain a successful coaching business. Without proactively reaching out and asking people the question, “Can we walk together?” it’s likely very little coaching is in the cards for us.
While online outreach is often the favored approach, sold to us by marketing gurus for its convenience and promise of reaching a wider audience, Montserrat shared she felt it was time to get out there in person.
“I thought to myself: I need to be out there meeting and talking to people. If they’re going to pay me for a service, we need to have a real connection. This is an opportunity to get to know me in person.”
I agree!
We may think that engagement starts in that first discovery session when we lay the foundation for building trust and rapport through a meaningful conversation with clients about what is important to them.
Yet, knowing how impactful engagement is when looking at it through the lens of MI, why are we not more strategic in applying it to our marketing and outreach efforts? Engaging is so powerful say Miller and Rollnick, “Sometimes these skills are all you need in order to be helpful.” (p. 22)
Montserrat’s strategy had all the earmarks of engagement: proactively reaching out to people, sparking real conversations about their vision and values, listening to what is important to them, and ultimately, creating real opportunities to offer them a “taste” of coaching.
Key takeaway: Being visible and accessible is key to reaching and engaging people around their health intentions and demonstrating the value and “experience” of the coaching relationship from the very start.
Selling the Destination
As I hung out with Montserrat in her booth, I recognized she had a real knack for creating an experience.
In addition to making a small investment in an eye-catching, branded table cover, she also hung a soothing nature backdrop behind her. Her table had something for people all along the stages of change—information for both skeptics and the curious-minded, a wellness prompt around stress to get people thinking (who doesn’t relate to the stress topic these days?), a give away (people love free stuff!), and easy ways to contact and connect with Montserrat to learn more about her offerings.
Honestly, it felt like a perfectly curated human instagram post that got people to pause their “strolling” and spend a few minutes engaging with the “content.” Many people chatted and offered a “comment” giving Montserrat the opportunity to “reply” and offer a “call to action” in the form of adding their email to her list to learn more and take next steps.
I came to learn Montserrat’s acumen in this department was no accident. She told me she used to be a travel agent and event planner, so the process of connecting with a venue, evaluating the cost/benefit, then creating a space that drew people in came easy to her. She was generous in sharing that the fee to participate in the event was nominal, and as part of her bigger strategy to do more in-person engagement, the investment of both time and money will allow her to scale this to other events and offerings.
Key takeaway: Leveraging your unique abilities, skills, and strengths can help you identify and launch a successful and more personally aligned strategy for engaging potential clients and leads. Like Montserrat, consider ways your engagement strategies can offer a “taste” of the destination.
Here We Go Again . . . What Does a Health Coach Do?
I wrote about this topic in an earlier post if you want to check it out: How Do You Respond When People Ask, “What Do You Do?”
In the twenty short minutes I spent with Montserrat that morning, I saw her email list grow by 10 or 12 REAL people, which was pretty amazing considering the dismal ROI we often experience when pushing out endless social media posts to the sound of crickets on a warm summer night.
Her success came from her ability to have meaningful, “engaging” (there’s that word again!) interactions with passers-by around what was important to them, where their pain points were, and how her programs and coaching could be the solution.
Instead of a long winded, one-sided, sales-pitchy sounding word salad, she offered a brief experience of coaching that demonstrated autonomy, partnership, relationship, collaboration, and yes—a value proposition that included information about her specific expertise, offerings, and next steps logistics.
Key takeaway: It is critical to have a well-crafted, engaging coach introduction in place that not only shares information about what a health coach does, but demonstrates the positive experience and value you bring as a coach. Ideally, your coach introduction should be more about them than you!
Become a Confident Closer
You’ve done the hard work of engagement—make sure you have a clear deliverable in mind.
Be clear about the results or “ask” you want from your engagement efforts and make sure to secure a follow-up or offer follow-up language like, “I’d love to follow up and learn more about your sleep and how I can help.” or “It sounds like you’re on top of your wellness these days. I’d love to keep you informed of my upcoming offerings as they’re always changing. Do you have any friends who may be interested in learning more about coaching? I’d love to reach out.”
Remember—”No” is not a rejection of you!
And, referrals are considered a slam dunk when building visibility and taking first steps toward relationship. We know from stages of change theory that we’re all at different places in our journey, and some people are just not ready in that moment to “act.” However! A feel-good, client-centric initial connection could mean you are the first person they think of when something in their life falls apart.
Cue Synchronicity
I’m a big believer in the law of attraction, having experienced it regularly throughout my professional career. Not the kind where you sit around manifesting more money, a better job, or a viral health coaching business through creative visualization or frilly positive affirmations.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Instead, the kind of synchronicity that happens when your consistent, inspired, day-to-day action steps start to fuel the energy of momentum. It’s like your antennae are up just a little bit higher, catching the vibes of other aligned energies. What we didn’t see as opportunities or synergies before, all of a sudden stand out like a flashing neon sign— “Hey you! Success in this direction!”
Joseph Campbell described it beautifully as “a thousand unseen hands.”
Monserrat validated this belief sharing that as she began to be more proactive about reaching out to her local community, authentic partnerships began to come into view along with reciprocal feelings of alignment with other providers. Soon, doors that were once closed seemed to be opening.
For example, a new connection she made with this recent approach to engagement helped get her foot in the door at a local library—something she had been struggling to do for a long time knowing that it would give her access to the population she hoped to reach most.
Her efforts also seemed to be leading to strategic partnerships with other providers and clinicians in a similar lane, but lacking a piece of their own puzzle that a NBC-HWC could provide. Remember, while many providers have clear areas of expertise (clinicians, chiropractors, RD’s, aromatherapists, personal trainers, etc.) WE are the behavior change widgets that help people “engage” in these powerful interventions.
The Energy of Engagement Flows Both Ways
Truth.
I appreciate the creature comforts of a flexible, remote, slipper-wearing, WFH career just as much as the next person—especially with the very real reputation SoCal has for long, arduous commutes and high gas prices.
But I also miss showing up for people in person and feeling that quality of mutual connection rooted in our coaching DNA.
You see, engagement is funny that way.
It’s a two way street that benefits both parties and leaves a positivity after burn that is not just good for business, but also for the health and wellbeing of both parties. Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., author of Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection, calls this powerful interpersonal experience positivity resonance. She describes it in her book as a trio of “tightly interwoven events:”
. . . first, a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you and another; second, a synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry and behaviors; and third, a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well-being that brings mutual care.”
Hello . . . is that not coaching in a beautifully articulated nutshell?
Fredrickson also says it best when sharing what her research has demonstrated:
“In this particular moment of connection, your respective feelings, actions, and impulses align and come into synch. For just a moment, you each become something larger than yourself. This is no ordinary moment.”
Translation: You, as the coach, experience the real possibilities of helping this person in front of you with the powerful skillset you’ve worked so hard to cultivate. “Maybe I CAN get my coaching practice off the ground?” “Maybe this feel-good connection with passers-by CAN grow into a real coaching relationship?”
The potential client has a moment of their own. “Maybe my life could be more than my present experience? Maybe there’s hope I can move beyond the things that are holding me back? Maybe I’m talking to the person who can finally help me?”
I don’t know about you, but this positivity resonance thing that Fredrickson has been studying for years looks and feels a lot like “engagement” to me!
A Case for Showing Up In Person
Can we achieve this same evidence-supported kind of engagement and positivity resonance in the virtual world? I know first hand, the big players across the landscape are trying to figure this out, scale it, and monetize its magic.
I’d say, the jury is still out.
In the meantime, a special thank you to my inaugural Pathfinder, Monserrat, for showing us the way to in-person engagement success. My guess is those feel-good interactions with her felt SO good, people will be coming back for more!
NOTE: You can find out more about Montserrat and her offerings on her website, and I’m sure she’d love to connect with other NBC-HWCs on LinkedIn too! Here is her info:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/healthcoachmontserrat/
Lean In To Coaching Prompt
Have you considered in-person engagement as part of your outreach and marketing strategy? What does or what might that look like for you, and what would be the benefit of this approach for reaching your population?
Go on a scavenger hunt this week and find a few individuals to “engage” around your coaching services. Approach them, start a conversation, and tune in to see if you can create that feeling of positivity resonance described by Fredrickson. What do you notice?
Self-Care: A Day of Synchronicity
My meet up with Montserrat was actually a story of how synchronicity works, leading me to experience a wonderful day of connection, learning, and self-care.
I originally had a plan to get up early and be the first in line to get my oil changed and then move off into a day of Saturday errands.
Then, I had a thought . . . “It’s a beautiful day. I’ve been meaning to visit the Santa Rosa Plateau for a hike—and the oil place is on the way. Why not just keep driving and take it as an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors?”
Before I left the house, I jumped on to LinkedIn for a quick scroll of health coach news. There it was! Monserrat’s invitation. It seemed to be calling my name and I decided to accept!
The rest is history—and I believe the whole amazing day was validation that the Universe was conspiring to support my wellbeing and professional success.
Prompt!
Take a moment to look over your past week and notice, in hindsight, examples of synchronicity around your efforts. Write them down to capture the magic!
This week, move through your work more intentionally with your synchronicity radar up. I think you’ll be surprised and encouraged how much support is out there for you!
Here are a few fun pics from my hike at the Santa Rosa Plateau.
December Offerings!
My November post, Secrets to 4th Quarter Coaching Success, was a nudge to both readers and myself to “throw mud at the wall” and get the energy moving around our health coaching offerings.
For me, my “Coach’s Corner” was a big success and enabled me to meet one-on-one with coaches to collaborate around their efforts. Here are a few anecdotal outcomes:
My favorite spiritual guide, Pema Chodron says, “We have all we need.” Our productive conversations led to discovering that we have what it takes to succeed as health coaches (credentials, skills, ideas, visions, resources), we just need to start!
Many of us are stuck in our “heads” with all the amazing ideas we have. Talking them through helps get rid of the static and identify the one’s that hold the most energy for best next steps.
Recognizing that solopreneurship requires (and benefits) from structural guardrails, like deciding how many hours a week you are working as a “health coach” and what days and times you are expected to be at your desk. Working as a health coach for a company would require that—holding yourself accountable is good for business!
After our conversations, coaches shared they felt “relieved” “excited” “focused” “confident” having had the opportunity to move toward greater clarity around their next steps.
I hope to have more of these generative and productive session in December!
Coach’s Corner: December
Wouldn’t it be nice to enter 2025 with a running head start? I’d love to help.
Receive support for your coaching practice including how to get started, clarifying your vision or process, getting your “coach introduction” down, working through a coaching conundrum, coaching skill questions or practice, or other kind of support you need right now. Let's work it through together!
Various 30-minute time slots available on Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Thursdays in December . . . NO CHARGE! Just click the link and book!
Coach’s Corner Link: https://calendly.com/megcoaching/december-coach-s-corner
Growth, Learning, and Resources
A shout out to Neal Sundberg, NBC-HWC, CRC, and his new podcast, The Health and Wellness Coaching Podcast, on Spotify. In his words, he “aims to highlight the applications of coaches in healthcare settings, current innovations in the field, and predict future trends.” I have been looking forward to his weekly drop on Mondays. It inspires me to hit the ground running and make an impact!
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.
Fredrickson, B. (2014). Love 2.0 : creating happiness and health in moments of connection. Plume.
The “Never Apologize for Promoting Your Coaching Work” Section
As always, thank you for visiting and reading this week. My aim is always to share ideas and information that provides value in a way that nudges your coaching and the field of health coaching forward.
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Onward!
Meg
Awesome read thanks for posting 😀